Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

It is with great sadness that we raise this issue again in the House. When it was discussed previously in the context of the death of Savita Halappanaver the words, "Never again", were frequently used. Of course, it has happened again and it will keep happening until we deal with Ireland's abortion reality.

The latest case known as Miss Y concerns a young woman impregnated as a result of rape and violated again by the State, has sickened Irish people to the core. It has exposed very graphically how our lack of provision for abortion in cases of rape has meant that if a person does not have the money or the means to travel, then she is forced to carry a rapist's child. This fact sickens Irish citizens; it is not what women want for themselves, their daughters, their mothers or their partners. It is cruel and degrading treatment.

This latest horror story has again exposed the hypocrisy of how successive Governments have failed to deal with Ireland's abortion reality, where Irish women have a legal right to abortion enshrined in our Constitution through the right to travel, but we simply cannot have that health treatment at home. It is disgusting hypocrisy, a scenario which the UN recently described as contributing to mental torture.

Deputies Mick Wallace, Joan Collins and I raised this issue and moved legislation and we made the point that the root of this issue is the eighth amendment which has resulted in a Chinese wall being put between a woman's right to health and a woman's right to life, rights which are indistinguishable in international human rights legislation, but for Irish women are qualified rights. The recent case means that the legislation which the Minister's Government introduced has not even been able to deal with what it was supposed to deal with, to give a right enshrined under the European Court of Human Rights for a woman to access a legal abortion where her life was in danger. We have seen crocodile tears about the treatment of Irish women and their children in the past but this is an unbroken thread.

Will the Minister finally shape up to this issue and repeal the eighth amendment? We had a very successful event earlier this month, a conference to repeal the eighth amendment at which delegates from across various sectors agreed with me when I said that we would use our Private Members' time in January to move a repeal of the eighth amendment if the Government does not do so. I hope the Minister will take up the challenge and do it first.

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