Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

There was no Trump effect here. The commentators warned there might be a Trump effect, that it would be terribly close and they referred to Brexit. There was never any doubt in my mind. This was a revolutionary upsurge that had been a long time coming. It was an unprecedented movement of people power and, in particular, of Irish women. It began way back with women being allowed to enter the workplace and third-level education in large numbers and reached a point where they were no longer willing to accept being second-class citizens in their own country. It has been a long time coming but it has been growing steadily. That is the ultimate explanation for what happened last weekend. It ushers in a new and better Ireland. People power - organising mass mobilisation - was critical to all of that. It was not a quiet revolution but a very vocal and determined one.

The first mass protest in which I participated was the X case demonstration, when the State tried to prevent a 13 year old rape victim from going to England for an abortion. It was an appalling vista that mobilised tens of thousands of people, forced the overturn of a High Court judgment and led to the Supreme Court ruling that began the process of changing everything. I know who led that demonstration. They were people such as Ailbhe Smyth and Goretti Horgan, who is still fighting in the Alliance for Choice in Northern Ireland. I remember Sinéad O'Connor and Eamonn McCann barging through the gates of Leinster House demanding justice for X. Those people inspired. At that time, I got involved in politics as did Deputies Clare Daly and Coppinger. Deputy Bríd Smith had been involved since 1983 and was another person who organised that demonstration for X.

The movement just built and built from there. However, it took tragedy after tragedy, and evidence after evidence of the failure of the eighth amendment to protect and respect women and to give them equality and choice, to get to this moment. It is therefore a victory for people power, for all those young and older women who were out canvassing day in, day out, week in, week out, the unprecedented movement we saw in the last few weeks. I do not have time to thank them all, but they know who they are.

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