Results 2,981-3,000 of 7,582 for speaker:Rónán Mullen

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (10 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: I oppose these proposed amendments. I would have thought that examination would always include a degree of consultation.We need to be clear here again that what we have in this Bill is legislation that in one section provides for abortion up to 12 weeks without a reason having to be given. We can say that that is elective abortion. It is not grounded in any medical claim. In all of the...

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (10 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: I am opposed to the amendment. It would have the clear effect of extensifying - if that is a correct word; I am referring to extending or widening - the health grounds for abortion. This is contrary to medical best practice and to unequivocal promises given to the people before the referendum. The people were promised that the Bill would require a threshold or test of serious harm to...

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (10 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: I agree with what Senator Ruane is saying-----

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (10 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: -----in that we need to try to approach this with integrity having regard to the positions we hold on this issue. Anything that suggests we would be letting down the country by teasing things through properly would be very regrettable. I want to pick up on a few points made by the Minister. He referred to the importance of information. I agree with him. This is a matter I will be...

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (10 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: We all feel challenged in that area talking about these issues. We have to leave all that behind and try to legislate for the common good in the best interests of men, women, children and, I would wish, unborn children. What gender we are now or in the future is irrelevant in doing this terrible duty that is upon us. The Minister referred to claims that were made about diabetes, for...

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (10 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: I move amendment No. 7:In page 8, line 25, to delete “appropriate” and substitute “necessary”. Amendment No. 38 is consequential on amendment No. 7. The current section 9 relates to the risk to life or health of the mother and states, as one of the necessary factors for a termination under this section, that it be "appropriate" to carry out the termination of...

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (10 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: In light of the questions I am posing, I hope that the substituting Minister, the Minister of State, Deputy Catherine Byrne, has the necessary background information on the very specific questions I am asking about the interactions between the Minister and various doctors and doctors' representative groups. I have no doubt she does. In the Dáil, the Minister said that to use wording...

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (10 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: As the late Jim Henson might have said, there is nothing like a comprehensive answer to a question and - it is not the fault of the Minister of State - that was nothing like a comprehensive answer to a question. She did clarify that the legal advice to which the Minister referred in the Dáil was that of the Attorney General. It is not the Minister of State's fault, she is only going by...

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (10 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: No, I understand that. I am grateful to the Minister for coming back. The facts are here. I have raised some specific questions to which I have not had an answer. The Minister's essential point seems to be that "appropriate" is the word that has always been used. I cannot remember whether it was at the point when the Minister left, but I put it to him that he elevated the meaning of the...

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (10 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: This is concerning. I get that the Minister might make a decision to be no more specific than he has been about the source of his legal advice. If it is from the Attorney General that is fair enough. Regarding the doctors, I can only ask the Minister to share with us which doctors are informing him. He mentioned the chief medical officer. I take that as his reply. The Minister said I...

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (10 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: The use of the word "necessary" absolutely does not remove scope for judgment. Doctors make judgments on what is necessary every day and they are judged and given a considerable amount of scope for their clinical judgment to decide whether something is necessary. It is incorrect for the Minister to say the use of the word "necessary" imports some kind of strict liability to use a parallel...

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: I wish to make a very brief comment. My colleague, Senator Bacik, referred to being surprised that Members - I presume she meant me or Senator Ó Domhnaill - were invoking the 2013 legislation in the context of the discussion about necessity. There was always the acceptance in 2013 that necessary medical procedures in which there was a threat to life were appropriate. That was never...

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: Before I comment on the amendments, I will address one point the Minister made. The Minister stated that he was certainly not devaluing a woman's life and that we have come so far from that since the referendum. I have a real problem with that kind of political language because of its implication. The eighth amendment was sought and put in place to protect mothers and children. It...

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: I move amendment No. 15:In page 9, line 8, to delete "woman, and" and substitute the following:"woman,(b) the foetus has not reached viability, and".

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: The section needed to be amended to ensure that, where an unborn child was capable of being born alive-----

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: The section needed to be amended to ensure that, where an unborn child was capable of being born alive, he or she would have been delivered alive, unless that course of action was not open to the treating doctors. We are left with a situation that there is currently no provision in the Bill requiring even a consideration of saving unborn life in an emergency situation. Surely it is not the...

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: Where in the Bill is it specified that the full range of neonatal care will be provided? Where is there any duty on doctors to act to vindicate life? Surely, in view of the Minister’s comments in the Dáil last April and the explicit pledge given to voters, the proposed amendments to the Bill should have been uncontroversial. The Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013...

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: I did not say the Minister was untruthful here today. I said it was impossible and it is impossible to conclude that he was being truthful when he claimed abortion post viability was specifically excluded.

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: I do not like having to diagnose it in this way but I cannot conclude otherwise. There has been an absence of truthfulness here when people claim the legislation specifically requires doctors to save life post viability when everything in the legislation adds up to exactly the opposite. I am sorry to say that somebody has not been truthful and it is not me.

Seanad: Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018: Committee Stage (Resumed) (10 Dec 2018)

Rónán Mullen: I would like to respond briefly. Nothing that I have said about mental health sets anything back 50 years. It is the Minister who has failed to address for even one moment the latest evidence, the best evidence and the evidence that was brought before the joint committee last year about what is the position as to whether abortion is ever therapeutic in mental health situations. I went...