Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

All of us want decent, proper, effective healthcare for women, and particularly for women requiring access to reproductive healthcare, maternity care and gynaecological care. I am not questioning anyone's bona fides and I do not think it is helpful to do so but legitimate concerns remain around ownership, governance and control. Positive changes have been made over the years, largely as a result of Opposition pressure and of pressure from activists and women seeking improvements in services and seeking to ensure we do indeed have a modern, world-class new national maternity hospital. Those concerns still remain, however. This State has an unfortunate and terrible legacy of failing women in our access to reproductive healthcare. It is only four years since we repealed the eighth amendment. Those of us who fought for decades to ensure women would have a right of access to abortion when we need it are very conscious that these rights can be very quickly reversed or overturned, as we are seeing in the US with the terrible news about Roe v. Wade and the potential overturning of that landmark decision for women's rights. That legacy, and the legacy of the State in investing a great deal of public money over the years in building up infrastructure through private hospitals owned by religious orders-----

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