Dáil debates

Wednesday, 3 December 2014

12:20 pm

Photo of Enda KennyEnda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This is an issue of great personal concern to the women who had to go through this procedure. The Deputy is right on that point. I know Deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin is one Member who has raised this issue on many occasions.

The options were stark. Every individual would have the opportunity to go to court to be involved in an adversarial conflict, the outcome of which could not be determined in advance. To avoid this, the Minister appointed a justice of the court to look at what the options for a scheme might be. She made very particular recommendations for payments of €50,000, €100,000 and €150,000, without the necessity of having to go to court but leaving open that option, if it were to be the choice of any woman involved. The figures were not determined by the Minister; they were brought forward by the justice in her fine report. The intention was to provide an option for women who had gone through this procedure to apply and receive prompt payment as determined and outlined by the justice in her report. That does not take away from their right, if they do not want to accept payment under the symphysiotomy scheme, to take a court case.

I know that there are a number of groups involved and that one particular group does not accept the terms of the scheme, while others do. It is a choice that was followed through on the principle that the Minister had decided we should have a scheme because this matter was sensitive and personal and had to be dealt with. The justice set out a scheme that, in a non-adversarial way, will deliver the payments promptly to the women involved. It is their right, individually, to accept or reject them.

As Deputy Marueen O'Sullivan will recall, we had the same in the case of the Magdalen scheme, when there was a lot of legal advice that people should take a different route and ended up in adversarial positions, in particular, women who had been through very difficult circumstances. That scheme, again determined by a justice, worked out well and payments have been followed through, with the provision of other facilities also. This scheme was determined and set out by the justice in her report, with the payments to be made promptly, while keeping the right for any individual woman to say: "I do not accept that. I want to take my case to court."

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