Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I, too, am quite sad about the way we are being treated here. We are entitled to research and table amendments for the right reasons and for compassionate reasons. Just because people want to hide and cover up, they behave as they do. They talk about England all the time. The attacks by Deputy O'Connell and others, including Deputy Bríd Smith, are an effort on their part to get the headlines and see who can be the most vitriolic about us and demonise us as if we were backward people. We get this all the time.

As for the ethnicity reference, it is in the UK legislation on abortion on foot of a recommendation from the UK equality authority in 2001. We are always talking about the United Kingdom and saying we have to send our people there but when it suits us, we do not want to have what they have in their legislation. The data are just for records, nothing else. We are as compassionate as anyone else. Nobody here has a monopoly on compassion. By God, they do not. That is one thing sure and certain. What we propose is the monitoring of statistics related to abortion and the abortion rate among minorities. Do the Deputies objecting feel there is a problem with the UK abortion law, which they told us was so liberal and which should have been made available to people here? They have a problem with the UK equality legislation, the research arm of International Planned Parenthood Federation and the Guttmacher Institute. That is what the Deputies are saying. The simple amendments we have brought forward were tabled respectfully. We ask for a respectful debate. I welcome the Ceann Comhairle back to the Chamber in order that we might have a respectful debate. The Deputies should stop demonising us as if we were evil. The staff in Amárach Research have outlined, quite clearly, many of the issues that arise. Hundreds among the 1,000 interviewed have said that they want these things as well. We are not being emotive. We are not delaying the legislation either. I resent the remark made today by the Taoiseach that we are filibustering. We are not. If one checks the record, one will see that most of the time was taken up by the other side on the first night. Tonight, indeed, we are not speaking for our full time but we are entitled to table, move and debate amendments without the vitriolic attacks of the Deputies who want to demonise us. They are vying for headlines, asking who could be the most wicked.

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