Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I will not join the Deputy in condemning the Catholic Church or any other church. All churches and citizens have every right to state their points of view to Government on any issue of public importance. This is a democratic country and that applies to everybody. People have the right to state to their legislators their view, whether they are representatives of churches, the pro-life movement or have a private opinion and long may that continue. It is our job as legislators to legislate in a fair way on behalf of the entire people of the country. As legislators, we have a responsibility to hear the points of view that are being expressed, to respect them and to respectfully disagree if that is appropriate. While some of the statements which have been made by church leaders on the legislation are exaggerated, wew should not in the House lose sight of what we are doing. Of course, I agree that when people make protests and express their points of view, it should be done respectfully. They should obviously not engage in the harassment of public representatives. I agree with the Deputy on that. However, we should not lose sight of the fact that this legislation is about protecting the lives of women in pregnancy.

The vast majority of the time, pregnancy and child birth are happy occasions, but there are a small number of cases in which a woman's life is at risk in pregnancy. It is the Government's settled view that, in those circumstances, we must legislate to provide clarity for women that their lives are safe, that they are safe in our hospitals and to provide clarity for the medical practitioners dealing with them. In some cases, a termination of pregnancy may be necessary to save the life of a mother. That is what the legislation is about and we should not get ourselves distracted by the nature of the campaigning, lobbying or engagement with public representatives. My personal view on the subject has been known for a very long time and over the years I have been subjected to some of the vigorous and sometimes overly vigorous campaigning on it.

We are public representatives and people can state their views passionately. Sometimes they may go overboard in the way they do it but as long as we are clear in our minds that our job is to legislate on behalf of the people and in the public interest, we will always be able to distinguish between the rights of people to express points of view, including points of view we do not agree with.

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