Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Kelleher speaks a lot of sense on this; it is something that needs to be very carefully monitored. This is why we are going to get on to issuing a review clause shortly, which is quite important. To be clear, the Oireachtas all-party committee gave me my instructions in preparing for the referendum and in drawing up the general scheme. The committee asked me to make sure the law was amended to allow for surgical terminations to be legally carried out in a hospital setting and to allow for medical terminations be provided for through the licensing of medications for that purpose and prescribed by a qualified practitioner acting in good faith. The committee recommended that where terminations occur in such settings, no criminal sanctions should apply, and in any case no woman should ever be guilty of a criminal sanction. This is what the Members on the Oireachtas committee charged me with doing as the Minister for Health. This is what we put into the general scheme of the Bill and this is what we put to the people. The woman never commits an offence in any circumstance. The woman should not ever be criminalised. This is very important.

We have come from a situation where termination was illegal in Ireland, except in the narrowest of circumstances when the woman was about to die. We are now in a situation where we will rightfully allow access to termination, without a charge and on a universal basis, to any woman and without specific indication, although there is always a reason, up to 12 weeks. There is a legal difficulty with what some Deputies are asking me to do. They ask if this can be caught in other Bills. I looked at this quite carefully and it cannot. Under section 7 of the Criminal Law Act 1997, referred to by some Deputies, "Any person who aids, abets, counsels or procures the commission of an indictable offence shall be liable to be indicted, tried and punished as a principal offender." Given that the pregnant woman will never be, nor should ever be seen to be, committing an offence this section of the Act will not apply and cannot be relied upon to charge any person who aids or abets, counsels or procures a pregnant woman to end her own pregnancy. I worry that we have yet to find a better vehicle by which to do this. We have had numerous conversations with the Attorney General. Based on those conversations, on the work of the all-party committee and on the general scheme of the Bill, I am not in a position to accept the amendments to remove the offences section. I would take Deputy Kelleher's advice about the importance of keeping this under active and ongoing review.

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