Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Every time a speaker has contributed here today he or she has said, as has been said many times, that this is an historic day. I could not help but grin every time because it meant so much each time it was said. It is a long road that has no turning. There are many people in here who never thought we would get here. We are on the cusp of legislating for free, safe and legal bodily autonomy and healthcare that puts women at its centre, not at the margins like a forgotten and irrelevant host. Along the journey to today there have been moments that shook this nation and that sent waves of emotion across the country. The bitterness and misogyny that led to the eighth amendment being enshrined in our Constitution may be a distant memory for some, yet there are so many echoes of it every day in our policies, in our hospitals and in our legislation. We must be careful not to repeat these mistakes and, where possible, to try always to remember what we are trying to achieve in here. I fundamentally believe that we are trying to make people's lives better. I believe we will make people's lives better today.

No doubt many of us have had our inboxes flooded with emails in recent weeks. I know mine has been. I have been told what people voted for and what people wanted to vote for when they voted yes. Fair play to those people contacting me because, if they can look inside their hearts and know what the people are thinking, they may have more in common with our forebears than we know. We should not presume to know why people voted yes in such enormous numbers. We can only assume that, like the Together for Yes slogan, their private decision in the privacy of the ballot box needed public support. They certainly received that. I thank those who voted yes. We now have to deliver the best legislation possible to honour that resounding yes vote.

We have to let the clinical experts, the doctors and the women involved have the latitude and independence to act in the way they see fit. The chill over medics must be lifted. The isolation, fear, and power over women must also be lifted. What comfort can someone take from placing barriers in the way of doctors or their patients? What sort of individual would take a twisted sense of achievement from the fact that a woman might - just might - be able to make a choice for herself only once sufficient hoops had been jumped through, certain hurdles cleared and certain criteria adhered to? If the idea is that barriers might give people comfort, then we should think about which people we are trying to comfort. Who is most deserving of comfort: a mass of people that we speculate exist or actual physical, visible and credible women, girls or children in need of comfort standing in front of a doctor whether in Tralee, Tullamore or Terenure? In Kerry, over 58% voted yes, in Offaly, over 58% voted yes, and in my constituency of Dublin Bay South, over 78% of people voted yes. Why and how they did that is their own business, but we would do a great disservice to them if we delayed and departed from that which was pledged.

There is a great insight in "Hamlet" when the titular character says that the actions that should be carried out swiftly get delayed so much that they stop being actions at all. We could probably benefit from listening to it a few times in here every day.

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action.

That is the thing about conscience. We are all supposed to have one, but some people deem theirs much more valuable than others. I have been dealing with this issue for almost nine years. When I, based on my own personal experience, started discussing it within my own party and in wider society, there was an attitude that we had been there before, that no one wanted this, and that the public had no appetite for it. When we started discussing it in here, I listened to many conversations suggesting it was a Dublin issue and that it was not relevant outside Dublin. We then saw the map of Ireland showing all of the women who leave every county in Ireland every year and it was in front of us that it was not just a Dublin issue. We had representatives who made assumptions based on the voices in their own echo chamber and their own people telling them what way people were thinking. Deputy Thomas Byrne referred to the gap between in here and out there and to the fact that we needed to employ or engage a Citizens' Assembly to bridge that gap.

The electorate needs to be conscious of the fact that in here does not necessarily represent what is out there. One of the most significant engagements I had was in Donegal when Dr. Peter Boylan and I went there to launch the Together for Yes campaign. When I looked down the room where we were doing the launch, I saw between 400 and 500 people but only one politician - he was not from my party either - showing leadership. Deputy Thomas Pringle led the charge in Donegal for the Together for Yes campaign when it was not popular to do so. It was difficult for politicians in Donegal because of the way the vote fell in the end. It is interesting how polls seem to have changed people's views more than perhaps evidence.

In Tipperary over a year ago, I assumed when older men approached me about the eighth amendment that I was about to get an earful. Instead, they told me how they had not thought about the women who went missing when they were young men. They just blocked it out. They never considered the girl in their class who did not turn up one week and disappeared. They never considered why a sister went away to England for six months. The accepted it as truth as they grew up and never considered it was a woman in difficulty and Ireland dealt with it in Ireland’s way then.

This is now and it is a fair departure from 2013. Largely due to the political make-up in the House, those of us dedicated to righting the wrong and removing the eighth amendment were able to work together on a cross-party committee and come up with such a comprehensive report. That report did not just land out of the sky. It came from hours of work and dedication from many members of all parties and none. We worked together and trusted each other to have the same purpose at the end. We worked together to get to the end.

We are now in a position where we want to roll out these services. The Minister referred to the number of women who have had to travel from this country to access termination services since the electorate resoundingly voted “Yes”. It is our duty as legislators to enact the will of the people and to stop what we were doing before, namely, torturing women and treating them in a cruel, inhumane and degrading manner in their hour of need. We still have one woman a week who receives a diagnosis of a fatal foetal abnormality having to travel in the most difficult of circumstances. I welcome the Minister's comments earlier about the provision of medical records to hospitals abroad in the interim. I remember the lady to which Deputy Catherine Murphy referred earlier. Some of the evidence we heard at the committee was deeply disturbing. A psychiatrist referring a patient abroad for treatment without her medical records was cruel. The professor who gave evidence to the committee said she would lie awake at night worrying about the welfare of those patients.

Hopefully, come the new year, we will start the process of dealing with women's health in a mature and rational fashion in this country. I agree with many of the speakers that there are issues with the Bill. Some of the language used is not ideal. I completely agree with changing the terminology from “pregnant woman” to “pregnant person”, inclusivity and also the front-loading of the criminality which brings a negative connotation. There could be a change of ordering in the latter case.

We also must ensure everyone is catered for. We do not want a situation where women in the most isolated parts of our country are not able to get timely comprehensive healthcare. There has to be a proper standard throughout. Deputy Bríd Smith spoke earlier about other health practitioners being involved in this. It is my considered opinion that this has to be led by general practitioners and doctors. It was the will of the committee and the expert evidence suggested that should be the case. In time, there might be an opening for that. However, now I would disagree that midwives and pharmacists should be involved in the prescribing and administration of what are called abortion pills.

We have to ensure sonography services are widely available, not just in Dublin but outside the capital. If a person gets a bad diagnosis in a 20-week scan, this would make sure there is no ambiguity and the person would not have to be moved to another centre to repeat the trauma of a bad diagnosis. Bizarre as it seems, if we just have that principle that women should be at the centre of this, and nobody else, then we are probably on a good path.

While we have managed to repeal the eighth amendment and we are in a new dawn, the negative effects the eighth amendment has had on our society and on families are coming down the tracks. Many of us engaged in this have heard many stories about a missing sister, a long-lost nephew, hidden people and the shame in families. My mother, who is 70 years of age, spoke to me about the crime it was to have a child outside of marriage. An unmarried woman having a baby was seen as the worst thing that could happen to someone, particularly when one considers that for most of us it is the happiest time of our lives. We have to think of the knock-on psychological effects on that whole generation who were fed a diet of hellfire and damnation while being preached to about their personal lives from the altar. It will take a couple of generations to wash the stains of all of this out of our history.

There are several people who deserve our thanks. Ailbhe Smyth fought for this for most of her life. The Together for Yes campaign, somehow, got people from all sides of the political divide to canvass together. I doubt in my lifetime I will ever again have somebody from People Before Profit shout at me about which road I should canvass. It was a once-off but it was worth it. We must pay thanks to the medical experts, many of whom gave their time voluntarily, who attended both Fine Gael and Together for Yes public meetings.

They were able to get into their car, travel and take questions in Louth, Meath, Tipperary or whatever part of the country we were in. The medical profession and the activists are the people who have driven this. I refer to those women who told their stories to many people within my party, the women and men who had a diagnosis of a fatal foetal abnormality. That is what changed it for many people within my party. I refer to the barbaric nature of the manner in which we were treating people.

If one were to tell a person in a medical crisis that they had to book a flight or get on a boat, go to a foreign city, deal with a health system with which they were not familiar and bring the ashes of their much-wanted child home, possibly in the boot of their car, it would seem like a made-up story. I am sure that, in time, future generations will wonder what we were at and how we allowed this to happen in our country.

I welcome the fact that this is to be a universal provision. We heard a great deal of evidence regarding barriers to access. Despite a person's means on paper, they may not have the means to have a termination of pregnancy when they want it.

Tribute must be paid to the Minister, Deputy Harris. He has listened and learned and been compassionate and understanding. He listened to the experts and helped us to get to where we are today. I also pay tribute to the members of the Fianna Fáil Party. While Deputy Donnelly is now the party's spokesperson on health, Deputy Kelleher was the party's main man on the committee, and I also pay tribute to Deputy Lisa Chambers. I thank them for sticking with us. I also thank the Sinn Féin members who sat down with me as we worked through the wordings and teased out how we could get to the end with the outcome that we wanted.

I am anxious for this to start in January. It is very important this is done right, that we do not have any errors, that we do not leave anyone out in the cold and that the system we put in place is fit for purpose. I am not going to fall out with the Minister over a week or two, or a month or two, but it is important this is done right. It is important people can have confidence in our health system that they will get the proper care and that they will not be treated as a trial run, because the woman and her family at the centre expect the very best.

Regarding the amendments, I firmly believe that what which we put to the people is that which we should be passing in this House. Deputy Donnelly put it very well in terms of the heads of the Bill. We must be very careful about any discrepancy between what we said we would do and what we are doing. We have to make sure it is as aligned as possible because the people want to be able to trust their politicians.

On this historic day, after 20 minutes of contributing, I thank all my colleagues, particularly my colleagues in Fine Gael, and the people of Ireland for doing what I thought they would do all along.

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