Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Government's decision not to oppose the Bill and the survivors of symphysiotomy have given a guarded welcome to the announcement, calling for this Bill's speedy enactment and commencement. They are wary of the Government's indication that it may await the publication of the final Walsh report. At yesterday's briefing the group was at pains to stress that the Walsh report was a whitewash, and this was vindicated by last year's Supreme Court decision that symphysiotomy was not a generally approved practice, in contradiction to the Walsh report assertion that nearly all symphysiotomies were medically acceptable.

I will use my time to tell part of a story of a woman from Wexford called Maura, who says she knew me when I was a child in the pram. Maura went to Holles Street in 1961 to have her second child, having had her first child at Airmount in Waterford, where she had a caesarean section. The birth of her second child, Wendy, was difficult but there was no caesarean section that time. Her memories of the episode are vague but she remembers people shouting that she should not push. She also remembers students around the bed, along with two nurses, and a hand saw. Nobody told her what was going on or asked for her opinion or consent. She states that one did not query the doctors at the time.

She received no after-care but she could not sit or walk for weeks afterwards. Later, she had to learn to walk again and even today she must sit on the side of a seat and cannot sit on a bench. Back pain became a feature of her life. Maura had two boys afterwards but did not dare go back for a six-week check-up. Later in life she had was to go for a cervical cancer check-up but was afraid to do so. Maura is just very glad that people like Marie O'Connor were around to help her seek some form of justice.

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