Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

-----and hope that they will not to be stopped. It is outrageous that we are putting them in that position. They want to acknowledge what would have been their hopes and expectations, but which have sadly been terminated because there was an incompatibility with life. There has been mention of postponements and claims about not having mandates while having sympathy and so on, but we started with the A, B and C, X and Y cases and will surely have cases comprising a further half a dozen letters of the alphabet before we reach the realisation or at least gain the courage to do what is right. We need to legislate in that regard.

I congratulate Deputy Clare Daly on publishing this Bill and being a consistent campaigner on the issue. All of the polling shows that the public is way ahead on the matter. I do not know why the Government parties, particularly Fine Gael, are so far behind the public on something that has humanity at its heart. People are trying to deal with a difficult situation in as sensitive a way as possible, but it seems that a small group of powerful people have a greater hold on public policy than the majority of those who want this issue addressed humanely.

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