Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I made my views known about a version of this amendment on Committee Stage, as did the Select Committee on Health when it voted in significant numbers to reject it. I am conscious that there are people watching this debate who will have been through tragic circumstances where they lost much loved babies, particularly in the cases of fatal foetal abnormality. I do not wish to use any emotive language which could in any way add to their pain.

I do not believe there is any woman out there in a crisis pregnancy who needs a ministerial regulation to tell her how to grieve or how to act in a dignified manner. I do know, however, what a woman has to experience currently in bringing back the remains of her beautiful and much-wanted baby in a box or through a courier is not dignified. I think this amendment is wholly unnecessary, has no place in legislation and should be rejected.

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