Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute on this Bill. I commend my colleague, Deputy Ó Caoláin, on laying it before the House. I also wish to take the opportunity to extend a warm welcome to the many survivors of symphysiotomy who are present in the public gallery this evening.

Yet again, the House is about to discuss an issue that concerns Irish women and the nature of their relationship with the State. Recently, the contours of this relationship have slowly begun to emerge. This opening up or shift can only be explained by one factor, that is, pressure. It was the act of women coming together that finally shed light on the warped, brutal and violent nature of this relationship. It is women and women's groups that have in many respects been in the vanguard in pushing the door open and in shedding light on the many dark secrets of our collective and, in this instance, recent past.

Since the foundation of the State, there have been many campaigns by women, almost all of which have sought to vindicate the rights of women and to challenge patriarchy. If there is a common thread that runs through this history of activism and unites these disparate social movements, it is the challenge to State-centred patriarchy and the secondary status that this confers on women.

A number of forces - patriarchy, the Catholic Church and the gendered nature of the State - have combined to produce a discourse about women and the female body that is State centred, conservative, domineering and male. In this hegemonic world view, women were controlled, disciplined and punished. Sexuality, childbirth and virtually everything to do with women and their bodies were subject not only to the male gaze, but more importantly to official male intervention. We should not be surprised that, in more recent times when Irish women have challenged the State and institutionalised patriarchy, the female body is the pre-eminent site of struggle.

Unlike other European states, the Irish State and its institutions and bureaucratic apparatus have never respected nor acknowledged the autonomy of adult women to control their own bodies. Unlike the European tradition, the notion of self that is embedded in the institutional fabric of the Irish State is the male self. The very fact that the survivors of symphysiotomy have needed to struggle, campaign and organise for more than ten years to get justice shows that, when it comes to issues to do with the right of a woman to the ownership and autonomy of her body, the State is often found wanting.

As a member of the all-party Oireachtas committee on symphysiotomy, however, I know that politicians from all parties and none want to do right by women on this issue. At a time when politics and politicians are the subject of much criticism and ire, it is heartening to know that we can work together constructively in an effort to right a terrible wrong when we have a common purpose and are guided by a sense of fairness and justice.

I take this opportunity to commend all of the women who worked on this campaign, in particular the action group Survivors of Symphysiotomy. It is important for people to get justice. We must acknowledge and accept that this country does not have a great record when it comes to women. While it would have been better had this procedure never been performed and that the very notion of symphysiotomy had been alien to us, it is none the less only fair to say that, in some instances, this hopefully being one of them, the political system can and does work in the interest of justice. It would be timely and most welcome for the State to have the courage to offer reparations and to vindicate finally the rights of these particular women. It would be a good day for the women of Ireland.

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