Results 2,921-2,940 of 7,637 for speaker:Rónán Mullen

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (11 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: The point I am making, which the Minister does not seem happy to allow me to make-----

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (11 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: -----is that there is a difference between being given an instruction to do something that puts one in the wrong if one does not do it and being given the freedom to do something.

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (11 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: Yes.

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (11 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: There was a lot of talk for long enough about why people thought it was inappropriate to have laws prohibiting abortion in the Constitution. Now it seems that every time the Minister refers to having been given some kind of instruction by the people, which he was not given, he wants to constitutionalise. We are being invited to believe that if the Government in any way rowed back from its...

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (11 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: What the people decided was that the Legislature, Oireachtas Éireann-----

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (11 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: I was responding to an inaccuracy in what the Minister said. It is inaccurate. I did not say he was incompetent and dishonest; I offered alternatives. I stand by my position that it is either incompetent in terms of the position the Minister holds or dishonest to pretend in any way that the people of Ireland on 25 May instructed the Government to introduce this abortion legislation in full...

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (11 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: I will finish with a question to the Minister. It relates directly to what he said about the three-day waiting period. He said he had changed it from 72 hours to three days. What is the significance of that?

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (11 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: I wish to ask a brief question. I thank the Minister for his response about the Interpretation Act but I do not understand the implications of it. The Bill states that "the termination of pregnancy shall not be carried out by a medical practitioner unless a period of not less than 3 days has elapsed" from the date of certification or the date of the previous certification. What I am trying...

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (11 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: It is clear to the Minister and colleagues from all of the amendments I have tabled with Senators Ó Domhnaill and Coghlan that we accept the reality that we cannot turn around this dreadful legislation. What we have sought to do in everything is to bring clarity and a modicum of humanity to what we regard as very inhumane. The forgetfulness of the dignity of the life of the unborn...

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (11 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: I respect the Cathaoirleach's position but I have to say that if a baby survives in this situation, it may be very much in need of what is called perinatal hospice care, although normally it does occur in the context of a situation where a tragic diagnosis of abnormality or disability is received and parents and baby need to be consoled and supported but it does arise in this case here. I...

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (11 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: The Minister's answer is very problematic. For the Minister for Health, who is introducing abortion on wide-ranging grounds, to say that he is unfamiliar with research about where situations have arisen in other countries-----

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (11 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: The Minister has had two years to familiarise himself with the stories and the documented evidence. He is the one who is introducing abortion, not me.

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (11 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: I would have thought that the Minister championing the introduction of abortion-----

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (11 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: -----would be interested enough to pursue the question of whether it ever occurs that babies survive abortion procedures and what happens to them in various jurisdictions. The Minister has a phalanx of advisers, a chief medical officer and the negligence of the situation, to put it kindly, that he would not be familiar with what happens to the point that he could in any way discuss whether...

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (11 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: The Minister is changing this. That was best medical practice, under Irish law and under Medical Council guidelines.

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (11 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: There is absolutely no question it is why Ireland's maternal mortality rates were among the lowest in the world. It was clearly understood as a matter of law that there was a duty to preserve life that was always in situ, even if that resulted in the death of the unborn. That was best medical practice in this country and was underpinned by law, not just by Medical Council guidelines. The...

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (11 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: He is causing a revolution in medical care of all the wrong kind. There would be no legislation if it was only a matter for medics. It would just be that abortion is permissible and it would be left up to medics to decide. This legislation is full of rules. The trouble is it is full of vague rules that leave open all sorts of dangerous, in some cases unforeseen and perhaps, sadly, in some...

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (11 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: The Minister is under a duty to know that.

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (11 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: The fact that the Minister chooses to have such a narrow interpretation and understanding of his duty is remarkable in itself. He has been instrumental in bringing about a situation where an unborn baby does not have rights, to all intents and purposes in all sorts of situations, and has left a lacuna where such a baby is born. He has created a right to carry out and access a procedure that...

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (11 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: The Minister should be open to this, even from a precautionary point of view. We are no different from other countries now as we no longer have constitutional protection for the unborn. We need to be clear that there is now no obligation that will override the lacuna in the legislation. The very fact there is a lacuna in the legislation will cover any future instance of deliberate neglect...