Geraldine Feeney (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. We appreciate the time he spends with us. I am pleased to have the opportunity of debating the excellent report we received towards the end of last year from the Crisis Pregnancy Agency.

The agency was set up two years ago and was born out of the decades of debate surrounding crisis pregnancy. The purpose of the agency is to underpin and develop the work of existing voluntary groups and establish a process of information, education, research and advice. The Crisis Pregnancy Agency is viewed as a support for the voluntary agencies but it does not duplicate their work, which is evident from the report. I also note from the report that it is a policy-maker, educator, researcher and an opinion-former. It will establish facts and put them into the public domain in a manner that is non-judgmental, kind, considerate and sensitive. The mandate of the Crisis Pregnancy Agency is to reduce the number of women choosing abortion.

On reading the report, I was impressed by the methodology of the agency in bringing together three Departments. As politicians, we know how difficult it is to bring together the strands of one Department. To bring three Departments together is a huge advantage and the Departments of Health and Children, Education and Science, and Social and Family Affairs appear to be working well together. I support other Senators who call for the ongoing funding of the agency because it is doing great work. Funding to date has been up to €5.9 million, from which the agency funds six voluntary agencies of which Cura and the Well Woman Centre are two. The Crisis Pregnancy Agency carries out a strong monitoring role with a staff of 14. Ms Olive Braiden, as chairperson, is familiar to everybody through her work with the Rape Crisis Centre. The director, Ms Sharon Foley, is a former member of the Department of Health and Children and a formidable woman in her own right.

The agency is engaged in several areas, as has been pointed out by Senator Feighan and the Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children, Deputy Callely. In research, the agency assesses where the gaps are in services for women. It has taken on the job of mapping the country, county by county, to see what areas are missing out on services. When those areas are identified, they are immediately resourced and worked upon. The area of counselling has improved twofold in that there are now very few waiting lists. It is now 50% easier to get an appointment for counselling than it was before the agency was set up. Other Senators referred to the advertising campaign, Positive Options, and the website listing the six agencies and the services provided. I was impressed by how the six agencies came together and did not compete for different slots in the limelight, evidence of how well this is working. They came together for the common good, producing an impressive leaflet under the umbrella of the Crisis Pregnancy Agency. There was reference to the texting service - "INFO 5444" - and the number of hits it has received. This is chic and "in". As the mother of two young teenage daughters, I scream when I am at home as they continually text. Ireland has become the texting nation of the world and it is apt to provide a service young people in difficulty can easily tap into. It is private and allows them to access information wherever they are. They are given a menu and the information they need. The advertising programme is ongoing and developing all the time. This spells out to us that there is a need to assess the funding and keep it at a level as much as we can.

As a mother of four, I consider pregnancy to be the most wonderful experience in the world. It is wonderful when it is planned. However, when it is not, it is a nightmare and a terrible tragedy for most women who see no light at the end of the tunnel and wonder what will happen to them. The Minister of State rightly pointed out that abortion seems the most likely choice for those women, whether they are young teenage mothers or 30 year old career women. It is wonderful that voluntary agencies and the directly-funded Crisis Pregnancy Agency can give comfort and solace to those women. Crisis pregnancies do not just happen to single women but also to married women in good and healthy marriages. They do not come about simply because a woman wants to hold down her job. If a woman is given the devastating news that the foetus she is carrying is so badly deformed that it is not compatible with life outside uterus, it can be a terrible devastation.

Senators spoke about the importance of education and it would be remiss of us not to mention the terrible tragedy of Anne Lovett in Granard 20 years ago. If only there was more sex education in our schools, how different our world would be. The report contains a survey from 1998 to 2000 that found the percentage of sexually active women using contraception rose from 26.3% to a whacking 42.9%. Sadly, in the same period the same survey found that contraceptive use for sexually active males dropped from 35.6% to 26.3%. There is a pressing need to educate young males in their attitudes to contraception.

The agency is doing a wonderful job and we must support its efforts. We must talk openly with it on the need for our society to change culturally. It is the first time that we have an agency like it and one into which everybody has bought. As a mother of four young children, I know I am scared of crisis pregnancy. Crisis pregnancies know no socio-economic boundaries and no barriers. It can happen to any woman. It is not just a woman's issue but also a community and male one. We all need to wake up to the need for cultural change. Let us get rid of the stigma of crisis pregnancy and become a more caring and welcoming society.