Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Before we adjourned I was addressing amendment No. 58 and I was complimenting the Minister of State, Deputy Lynch, on the amendment she had proposed.

I wish to condemn in the strongest possible way the decision taken by the Chief Whip and the people who voted for this ridiculous decision to take the vote at 5 a.m. It is not that anybody on this side of the House is flinching at the idea of staying up. If it made sense for us to do this we would support it, but it is nonsense. It is a nonsensical decision because this matter is of grave concern to everybody on both sides of the House and it would have been right and proper to have continued the debate in a proper and orderly fashion tomorrow and on Friday if necessary. We are hearing that the Dáil will not sit tomorrow until 12.30 p.m. Does it make sense to be rushing this debate tonight to try to get through the amendments and have a forced vote at 5 a.m. and then delay proceedings tomorrow until 12.30 p.m.? It makes absolutely no sense. It is ridiculous.

I am sorry I have only a couple of minutes to continue speaking. I was given abortion statistics from around the world. One that jumped out at me was that there have been 330 million abortions in China in the past 40 years. I just think it is wrong. There are 13 abortions for every 10 live births in Russia. It is wrong. There are 125,000 abortions per day in the world. It is wrong.

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