Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is incredible that the people who are working in the health service, who want to do a day's work, save and protect people, are being attacked in such a manner.

This is a terrible accusation to level at a doctor or nurse as they seek to defend a conscientious objection and we have to remind ourselves of the import of what they are being asked to do. The Bill states that termination of pregnancy is the ending of a life of a foetus. It shocks me that we have not had that level of consultation at all. If something is built without that level of consultation, I guarantee there will be problems in it. The purpose of consultation is to iron out the difficulties that could arise in future.

I know the Minister is hungry to get this through. He has probably staked a bit of his reputation on the timescale of this being pushed through. This is surely more important than the reputation of a Minister and whether it happens on 1 January or 1 February. Surely the outcomes and potential pitfalls are the important issues that we, as Deputies, should be focusing on.

This amendment that we seek to provide here reframes the Bill so that there is a positive and substantive protection for the freedom of conscience. The current section 24(1) states that nothing in this Bill obliges a doctor, nurse or midwife to participate in carrying out a termination under sections 11, 13 or 14. However, it leaves a significant gap in the protection of those people because it merely says the Bill itself does not force doctors, nurses or midwives to participate. It therefore does not prevent the imposition of such a compulsion by an employer, a professional body or even an individual seeking to get promoted, or get through a particular piece of work. Accordingly, the amendment that we have tabled fills that particular gap.

The Minister should never say we do not listen to him because we do. The way we have framed this amendment is by using the direct words he used at the Committee on Health. He said that what he wants to see this level of protection for doctors, nurses and midwives included in the Bill. We decided that, rather than go for the yellow pack conscientious objection that exists in the Bill, we would lift the Minister's words from the blacks of the committee, put them into the amendment and slot them into the Bill itself.

I will tell the Minister one thing. This is the most dangerous aspect of the implementation of his Bill. As a number of other Deputies have stated here, there are a large number of healthcare professionals who will not implement this as laid out. They will refuse to implement it. The problem here is that the abortion service that the Minister seeks to provide will be as chaotic as the health service over which he presides.

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