Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank all Deputies for their contributions to this Second Stage debate. I have had an opportunity to speak on this issue on a number of occasions in recent months, as have all Deputies. I hope in the not-too-distant future we will have an opportunity to stop speaking on this issue, or certainly to stop speaking to each other on it, and to start engaging with our constituents, communities and civil society as the people make a solemn, serious and complex choice.

Tonight has been quite an emotional debate in a way I did not expect it to be. The reason is that we are all professional politicians and we come in here and grapple with complex issues. We debate them and trade barbs every now and again. What has struck me tonight is that even people with whom I absolutely fundamentally disagree on this issue, and they with me, are grappling. We are all grappling to do the right thing. I genuinely believe that. It is important that as we grapple we do not try to create bogey men, call each other names or suggest that anybody places a greater value on life or that anybody cares more or less for one group of people. That is not a true or fair reflection of this debate.

I thank Deputy Ferris, in particular. I perhaps did not think I would say that in the House, and perhaps he did not think I would say it about him in the House, but that shows how the debate transcends party lines. Deputy Ferris has shared his family experience and insight which I greatly appreciate. We all do. The humanity the Deputy has brought to the debate, regardless of people's views on the issue, is important. It is important that we hear all those real stories because it is not an abstract concept. They are not faceless women, whatever decision they make. They are not numbers; they are people and they are women. They are people we know. They are our families and they live in our communities and they work alongside us. They are faced with complex situations and difficult decisions. Some people will make a decision and others will wish to make another decision. The problem I have at the moment is that in this country certain decisions are protected and viewed as okay and other decisions are not allowed.

I am sorry if I offended or upset Deputy Healy-Rae but he did not hear what I said in the Dáil. I told the story of the couple I met. I sat with them. They had desperately wanted a child, had been told they were pregnant and were overjoyed. They were then told the baby would not live. They did not want to kill their baby or take their baby's life or any of those crude or vulgar terms. They wanted the baby badly but the baby was not going to live. The baby could not live. People were coming up to the pregnant mother asking if it was a boy or girl and asking when the baby would be born and whether she had picked a name. The couple knew that baby was not going to live. They knew the baby was either going to die in the woman's womb or straight after the baby was born from that womb. They had to go to the UK. That was the decision they made. They went to the UK and they had to bring their baby back in the boot of a car in a coffin. The House has heard similar stories from Deputy Ferris and on radio today. Deputies will hear different stories in the coming days from people who chose to do different things. It was not about being offensive or anything like that. It was about me telling the Dáil the story they shared. They cried when they told me that story and I cried with them. Very few people would not be moved by that story.

People have made a number of very important points tonight. I will refer to the points made by Deputy Rabbitte and Deputy Troy and many others on how we support people in crisis pregnancy. The cross-party committee did excellent work. If I was to pick a flaw, it is that they are called ancillary recommendations because they are important. The committee made recommendations on how we help people who find themselves in crisis pregnancies, how we reduce the number of crisis pregnancies, how we educate our younger generation on sexual health, how we provide greater access to contraception, and how we support the woman and her partner who decides to go ahead with a pregnancy to full term knowing the baby may only live for a few brief moments. We have a lot to do in that regard.

I said the last day I spoke in the Dáil that I will bring proposals to Government. They will not be proposals that I will say we will introduce if people vote "Yes" but proposals I want to introduce anyway in line with the committee's recommendations. They will look at things like the different types of contraception and how we can make it more available, how we can address the committee's finding that in some cases cost is a barrier to access, how we look at things like perinatal hospice care and put concrete proposals in place to help in that regard, and how we look at greater access to counselling and sexual health education so that all our children learn about sexual health in an age appropriate fashion as they go through our education system.

I have been taking notes of some of the suggestions Deputies have made here tonight on some of the things I should consider in the context of bringing forward that package of proposals. It is a very important part. Regardless of what one's view is or what label we put on one's view, we can all agree - it has disappointed me that we have not all agreed - we have not heard every campaign, regardless of its perspective, say it is a sensible thing to do to provide people with greater access to contraception and that it is a good idea to provide more perinatal hospice care and to provide better sex education in our schools. Unfortunately, I have not heard unanimity break out on that, which worries me because it is a common sense thing that we should all do.

I will make another point but I will not get into the substantive issues of the legislation that will follow. I will get into it at length again as I have already in the House, but today we are concerned with the referendum Bill. It is about putting the proposal to the people and giving them a chance to have their say. That is what the referendum Bill is about. I have a duty to put forward what I propose to introduce should the people vote "Yes". I have done that. I have produced a policy paper which has been ratified by Government and is published on my Department's website. All Deputies have seen it. We discussed it here the week before last - all the weeks are running into one on this but I think it was the week before last. I will very shortly publish the heads of that Bill so, as Deputy Fleming referenced, it will be more than a policy paper and people will get to see the legalistic language as it develops into a Bill.

People keep talking about my proposals and the Government's proposals. They were not picked by me or plucked from the air and they did not fall from the sky. They were the cross-party committee's proposals. I appreciate there were Deputies - Deputy McGrath was on that committee - who did not share those views. I appreciate there was not unanimity on the committee. I absolutely appreciate it but in my view it was the best thinking of a cross-party committee and the best effort at trying to reach consensus on an extraordinarily complex issue. There was not a consensus but it was the best effort. When one reads through the testimony and the transcripts, as I have many times, one sees that the committee did not just wake up in the morning and decide it was the way to go. It put huge effort into arriving at those proposals. There is an onus on me as Minister. The sensible thing to do as Minister for Health is to proceed on the basis of those recommendations and to allow them to form the basis of what we do.

I hope we can pass Second Stage. I hope that after the passage of Second Stage of the Thirty-sixth Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2018 we can scrutinise the legislation further this week in the House on Committee and Report Stages and discharge our duties as Members of the Oireachtas. We have talked a lot about rights and conflicting rights. We have rights as Members of the Oireachtas to scrutinise legislation. We have an obligation. That has to be balanced with the right the people should have to have their say on this issue. I hope we can get the balance right in the Dáil this week and hopefully in Seanad Éireann next week so that we can allow the people of Ireland to have their say in a referendum by the end of May. I am conscious that every party leader in the House, to the best of my knowledge, has given a public commitment that they would like to see the referendum by the end of May so there can be maximum participation by civil society. There is an onus on all of us to work together to facilitate that.

The debate has continued to be respectful and it is important that we set the tone in this House so that, when the debate leaves the House, that tone can be continued.

There will be plenty of time to tease out and discuss the issues and like others, I hope we hear from doctors, regardless of their perspective. When we talk about this, everybody becomes a gynaecologist or an obstetrician, though of course we are not. I hear people who are not doctors making definitive statements as to what happens in a clinician's room or an operating theatre and I hear people purporting to be nurses giving their views on what a nurse would do, only to have to retract and concede that they were never nurses. It is important that we hear from medical professionals, from women, regardless of their perspective, and from civil society. I will go back to Cabinet next week on a general scheme of the legislation I would propose if the people vote "Yes". I will also introduce a package of measures to reduce crisis pregnancies, to improve access to contraception and to improve the availability of a comprehensive sex education programme to protect the sexual health and well-being of our young people.

It is my pleasure to propose the Second Stage of the Thirty-sixth Amendment of the Constitution Bill.

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