Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will speak to amendments Nos. 33 and 34 in this grouping. The Minister said that we cannot have a situation where there is a barrier but the three-day waiting period constitutes a barrier. There are different degrees by which it does so. It might not be so much of a barrier for a wealthy woman who can easily take time to access her GP, but for a woman who lives in the North who might have to make multiple journeys, it represents a significant barrier. For a woman subject to domestic violence, it will be a barrier that will effectively render this legislation useless. A woman in direct provision might not be able to get out. These are serious considerations.

I reiterate my statement on Committee Stage that the Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution did not recommend the three-day waiting period. It is a political construct. It was not recommended by doctors, lawyers or any of the politicians on the committee, yet it somehow found its way into the public discourse. While we accept it was in the heads of the Bill and formed part of the discourse, nevertheless barriers to access – I will not speak of cooling-off periods – must be minimised because access is key. We have discussed whether access should be put into the Title of the Bill. Surely we can accept that if we must live with the three-day waiting period, it can start from when the appointment is made, two or three visits to a doctor are not necessary and a requirement of this nature will have different degrees of impact on women, having the least impact on wealthy women who have time, if they are not in a domestic violence situation, and the most impact on women who do not have the financial means. As I said on Committee Stage, ultimately, the test of this legislation will be whether there is a marked reduction in the number of women sourcing tablets from the Internet. If there is not, then this legislation will have failed. If we stick with multiple visits to a GP, we will put an unnecessary barrier into this legislation.

This legislation also has a blind spot relating to women under the 12-week period but in a situation where the three-day wait could take them over 12 weeks. It would be sensible to ensure that if the three-day period is overly burdensome, then we can do what is necessary to minimise the impact of that, if we cannot eliminate it altogether.

The Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution did not put this in but it was put in. We could probably schedule a rake of debates on how, why and where this happened, however, it was part of the public discourse. I would like to be eliminated completely but the purpose of my amendment is that we limit its impact on access, especially for the groups to which I referred.

See this speech in context