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

I might even take a bit more time as the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, in doing his arithmetic on the allocation of time, miscalculated and left some of the Deputies short of their time. However, I will try not to stray too far off the ten minutes.

I am the person proposing this legislation, and I understand it perfectly. I will not have the Minister use the comments of some people who spoke in favour of this legislation to undermine the valid and legally sound legislation we are putting forward.

Three years ago, on the first occasion on which I introduced legislation to deal with some of the issues involved, I received a letter from a Church of Ireland bishop in Tipperary in which he congratulated me on taking a stand and indicated that he was sick of the systemic spinelessness of the political establishment. What he wrote came back to me as I listened to the contributions to this debate and it sums up where we stand. Not a single credible argument against the Bill has been put forward. What we have heard is very graphic testimony, most particularly from Deputy Boyd Barrett, regarding why the Bill is necessary. I was struck by the comments representatives from Terminations for Medical Reasons Ireland made at the briefing they gave on Wednesday last to the effect that in a ten-day period they were contacted by ten families affected by the enormous tragedy of fatal foetal abnormality. These are real people with real lives who are left in agony while we sit around, talk and fail to act.

The Bill before the House is incredibly limited. It was wrong of the Minister to refer to his being pro-life and that he does not support abortion on demand. I am pro-choice but I recognise Ireland's abortion reality. In that context, I am aware that the so-called eighth amendment ban did not ban abortion in Ireland. Rather, it just led to Irish women going to England, Holland or elsewhere to have abortions or to their procuring a few pills via the Internet in order to have them here. I support women in the context of all circumstances in which they might choose to have abortions.

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