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

I have to admit I am nervous this evening. I become nervous about any debate or speaking in public.

The reason I am nervous this evening is that I believe passionately in what I am going to say. Nobody can blame me for that or hold it against me. It is just my heartfelt belief. It is the way I was brought up and I am grateful for the opportunity to say my few words on what I believe and give my viewpoint.

I want to acknowledge a great group of people with whom I have had the privilege of dealing over many years in County Kerry. They are the people involved in the right to life movement, Pro Life campaigners, with whom I have worked and debated alongside. We have been trying to put forward our point of view over many years. There is one special person, Mary Fitzgibbon, a lady I admire very much, who has a great heart and is a great advocate for the unborn. She passionately believes in what she believes in.

I also want to compliment a report, which I was glad to read, by Deputies Fitzpatrick and Mattie McGrath and Senator Rónán Mullen. I know Deputy Mattie McGrath will not mind me saying that I heard him say at one stage that he found being on the committee which teased out all of these issues one of the most trying and difficult periods in his political life. Again, nobody can blame him for his beliefs or why it hurt him so much to hear what he heard in the committee. Nobody can because he is entitled to his opinion, as is everybody else. I respect that.

I want to talk tonight about the unborn children of the past, the present and the future. There are all types of solutions out there and all types of ways of dealing with problems. I received a private text a while ago from a very close friend of mine. He is a private man and a very respectable worker. He gave me permission to read it out. This point is about parents who might not be able to deal with their own children. The text message states:

Michael, food for thought for the future. My sister and I were adopted in 1981 and 1983. We had the best in life. [I know the two of them and they had a great life.] We had all that was good. There are solutions out there for all. My sister found her mother; I did not yet. You can say this wherever you want and I have no problem talking about it to anybody.

That is a person of courage, a private person who sent me that message before I came in to speak in the Dáil tonight. He said he was a child whose parents may not have been able to deal with the situation but he ended up having a great life. I want to talk tonight about the opportunity of life. Members opposite can call it whatever they like. I believe, however, that from the moment of conception, the person is a baby, a child to be protected in the same way we would protect a child in a pram on the street if we thought something was going to happen to that child. I just do not agree with abortion. I just do not think it is right. Nothing will ever change me from that point of view.

I have given a lot of time over the years to debating this issue. I knew eventually we would come to the stage where we are at now. I did not know I would be in this House. I did not know if my father would be here or that there might be no Healy-Rae here. I feel privileged that I am able to speak from the heart about what I believe in. I will try in the best way I can. I feel inadequate that I might not be the best at explaining myself. However, I will try to explain why I am the way I am.

Ireland has progressed. We have seen what happened and the awfulness of the Kerry babies case which we debated earlier today. Nobody wants an Ireland like that. Nobody wants an Ireland where, if a young lady becomes pregnant, it is as if there is something wrong with her because she became pregnant. That is a total abomination to me. Many young girls who became pregnant in the past were locked up in mental institutions. There were 1,200 or 1,300 people in mental institutions when there might not have been 50 of them who actually had a mental health problem. They were perfectly sound, sensible people. Many of them were young girls who became pregnant. It was a case of shunning them away.

That is not the Ireland of today. If a person becomes pregnant today, there are back-up services, support and family support. There is no shame in being pregnant. If one is married or not, that does not matter a God damn to anybody. Nobody is judging anybody like they did in the past. The past was a horrible time. What happened to Joanne Hayes and other young girls who had to have their babies in private and who died while giving birth to their children, as did the children, was awful, dark and horrible. It was described by Brinsley MacNamara in his novel, The Valley of the Squinting Windows. We are gone from that, thanks be to God.

We are at a stage now where if a person becomes pregnant and they want to have the child, all the supports are there. If they cannot see their own way to keeping the child, there are so many parents and young people in this country who would give anything, even the last euro in their pockets, to have a child of their own. They might not be able to have a baby for one reason or the other but they would love to bring up a child. Like the friend who sent me the text to which I referred earlier, they had the best of adoptive parents, highly respectable working people who gave them a great start in life.

If my viewpoint turns people against me and costs me my seat and the right to be here in this Chamber, I would gladly lose it. All politicians are entitled to believe in what they believe - they are 100% entitled to their view - I am also entitled to my view. A politician who will not stand for something will fall for everything. I believe in what I believe in. If tonight were to be my last night in the Chamber, saying these words, I mean it from the bottom of my heart that I want to stand up for the unborn children of the future. Who am I to deny them the right to life? Who am I to deny them the opportunity that I had to come into the world, lead a life and do everything to the best of my ability?

The recommendations that came forward from the committee were wrong. I studied the evidence that was given. At the time I apologised I could not attend the committee because I was chairing another committee, as Deputy Mattie McGrath knows, which was sitting at same time. We have to be fair about the evidence given. It was the same as the Kerry babies case and the tribunal held at the time. When people look back at the transcript of eighth amendment committee, they will have to admit it was weighted one way and not the other. That is the truth. I compliment Deputies Mattie McGrath and Fitzpatrick and Senator Rónán Mullen on the sterling work they did because they were up against it. They were unfairly outweighed and the evidence given was biased, in my humble opinion.

If we go back, people voted for the eighth amendment in huge numbers. It has saved many lives. It could be 100,000 lives, 50,000 lives or it could be 5,000 lives. Thanks to that amendment, there are thousands of people living in this world today and walking the streets today who otherwise may not be here. Now we are talking about repealing it. This House cannot deny that the eighth amendment has saved lives. However, the Citizens' Assembly and the Oireachtas committee did not hear from even one person representing those lives and those who know their child is alive today because of the eighth amendment. How can that be fair? How can that be democratic? How can that be in the best interests of the people, if we gloss over such an incredible story?

People are alive today because of that amendment. They have been given the right to life because of it.

Buried beneath all the spin against the eighth amendment is something very positive. It is a story of hope against the odds. There has been a deliberate attempt to look the other way and pretend that no good has come from the eighth amendment and to keep referring to it as controversial as if it is no good and to never talk about it in a positive way. The eighth amendment is an excellent lesson in how we can debate things today. The lesson is that we do not debate things at all. Too many people in this House and the media simply attack what they do not like. Everybody in politics and the media knows that the pro-life side has been largely shut out from the process. We were fortunate enough to have a number of strong representatives, who I have named already, on the committee. If those three people were taken out of it, it would have been a completely weighted in one direction and it would have been a one-sided debate. There would have been no debate except for those Members being there.

I have become familiar with many stories in recent times from talking to people about this issue. I think about the story of one woman who has spoken out about how she contemplated abortion, only to change her mind. She talks about how grateful she is for the eighth amendment. She says the time it took her to book an abortion and get ready to travel to England was the time she needed to change her mind. These are very powerful stories. That was a child, a human being, and an adult today. At present, some pretend that when we talk about introducing abortion, it is not really going to end the lives of many babies, specifically babies with disabilities. We hear stories and sad statistics about all the babies aborted in countries such as England or Denmark simply for having a disability. They are truly shocking stories. The reason over 90% of babies in these countries are aborted is for having Down's syndrome. We really have to think about that. I have had the privilege in my lifetime of befriending children of friends and neighbours who have Down's syndrome. They are a joy and pleasure to know. They have their own ways, friendly personalities and they make a contribution to life. If we go down this road, will we have a situation in the future where people will play God with these people's lives and a person will not be born if he or she is imperfect? I do not agree with that. I believe that there is only one God, who is not here in this Chamber. It is the right of these people to be born as much as anybody else. If one is not perfect and is inside the womb, one has the same right to come into this world as the person who is perfect.

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