Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Although it is ten or 11 years ago, I remember as if it was yesterday sitting in the then meeting rooms of the Drogheda area women's network at Rope Walk in Drogheda, listening to up to a dozen women telling me and the then Sinn Féin Deputy, Arthur Morgan, of their horrendous experience of symphysiotomy. Until that meeting I had never heard of that barbaric procedure and I was transfixed, disturbed and upset by what I heard that night. I was distressed that this procedure was carried out in my local hospital during my lifetime and upset that many of the women who gave testimony that night were well known to me. I admired their courage, their ability to open up and the way they put on the record in front of me and others from my community and town exactly what happened to them and how it had an impact on their lives and families. I admired those women then and my admiration has only grown over the years.

I now count many of these women as personal friends and they are with us this evening in the Gallery. That night, over ten years ago, I committed to continuing to support the rights of these brave women to access justice, recognition and recompense. I promised myself and these women from Louth, Meath and throughout the country that if I were ever in a position to do something to advance their battle for justice, I would do just that. Thanks to many of these women I am now a Member of Dáil Éireann and I take that responsibility very seriously, as I do my obligations to the survivors.

I decided a long time ago that a grievous wrong was done to these women and I am not a late arrival or convert to this issue. I have always held these views. I have held the hands of women - many my mother's age and friends of mine or my family - when they have opened their hearts to me. That has had a significant impact on me and tonight I am pleased we can have a consensus on the issue before us. As a Legislature we may too often divide along party lines but it would be a tremendous gesture of our common humanity to enable, in every possible way, an unimpeded way to justice with this particularly heartbreaking issue. I look forward to the calls of justice for the survivors being heeded soon and accepted formally by this State in various forms. That day has been too long in coming but I hope this evening's debate and the work of this House and many of its Members over the years will move the call for justice a significant step forward.

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