Dáil debates

Thursday, 31 May 2018

Referendum of 25 May: Statements (Resumed)

 

9:50 am

Photo of Jan O'SullivanJan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak in this debate. For me, this was a hugely emotional decision and a coming full circle because the first campaign in which I was involved politically was in 1983, when we campaigned against the insertion of Article 40.3.3° into the Constitution. I was with a small band of brave people in Limerick at the time. Most of us were also involved in the establishment and continuation, despite prayers outside, of the Limerick Family Planning Clinic, and we need to remind ourselves that access to contraception was a battle that had to be fought at that stage. This is why the first thing I want to say is that one of the ancillary recommendations of the Oireachtas committee was that contraception should be freely available. I again call on the Government to ensure there are no barriers to access to contraception. I was talking to a nurse friend of mine recently who works in a GP practice. She talked about how young women, when talking about contraception, still ask, "How much will it cost?". That recommendation is therefore really important, and I say this in the context of my own history and political history.

In saying this, I want to remember a man called Jim Kemmy, a proud Member of this House who was way ahead of his time in fighting many battles. I acknowledge all the young people who were involved in the campaign, but there are older people - Jim has since died - who put their political necks on the line in 1983. I also want to speak about people such as Ailbhe Smyth, who was involved in 1983, former judge Catherine McGuinness, who was hugely important in the campaign, former Senator Mary Henry, who also fought many battles in the Oireachtas, and many others within my party. My leader has already referred to Dick Spring and the extraordinary Labour Party group in the Seanad that tried to stop the Bill in 1983, including Deputy Howlin himself, but also Catherine McGuinness, Mary Robinson and Michael D. Higgins, all of whom went on to play very significant roles in Irish society.

The campaign to repeal the eighth amendment was a tremendous victory and was broader than just the issue of abortion. It was really about Ireland changing its culture to one in which it is accepted that someone in power out there does not know what is best for us as Irish women. Sadly, we had another reminder of this in the story that broke yesterday about the people who had their birth certificates falsified in order to transfer them from their mothers to other families. This culture was very prevalent right across Irish society but, thankfully, it is now gone, and this is very significant.

So many people and groups were involved in the campaign, but I think many of us who were members of the Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution have already said that the representatives of Terminations for Medical Reasons were really powerful. I pay particular tribute to Limerick Together for Yes because it was genuinely cross-party and involved many people who were not in any political party and who are a lot more politicised now than they were at the start of the campaign. It was a fantastic campaign in which to be involved. I am thinking in particular of a young couple I met at the count in Limerick last Saturday. They had a little baby in a buggy and they said to me, "This has changed our lives." They had faced a diagnosis of fatal foetal anomaly, they had had to travel to Britain, they had had one child after that, who is a perfectly healthy, lovely little boy, but they said, "We would not have chanced another pregnancy if this referendum had not passed." They left the count absolutely happy. They could now try to have another child because they knew that, if there were a problem - I do not know the details but I think within their family there was a possibility there might be a problem again - they could now say that they were safe in their own country.

Finally, I urge the Minister to get the legislation through as quickly as possible. No one in the Opposition will hold it up in any way. I know the Government is saying it just wants to deal with the general legislation, but if Senator Ivana Bacik's proposals concerning decriminalisation and the other requests concerning other issues, which I think some Deputies have already raised, can be accommodated, I ask the Government to do so. The Minister for Health himself played a blinder. I think we all just feel a great sense of relief that we finally live in a country of which we can be proud.

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