Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State and the representatives of Patient Focus who are in the Gallery. This has been an amazing debate. We decided this morning that the lead speakers would be women because this is an issue about women's bodies. I am sure that the men who contribute will do a good job as well.

I praise Senator Terry for speaking about her first pregnancy in such an open manner and without drama. I am so proud of Senator Feeney for her work on the Medical Council. I stand in awe of her knowledge, as I do of Senator Henry, who is a member of the profession which we are calling to order today.

Each of us speaks from our experience. I physically had a child and we adopted a second child. I suppose giving birth once is the same as giving birth many times. I was married for four years yet I was not pregnant. In my time, it was expected that one would have a child soon after marriage. My brothers and sisters were married before me and they had many children, yet there was no sign of a child for me. It was not for lack of activity because we were mad about each other. I do not know if we overdid it, but I became pregnant. It was only once in my life but how lucky I was. I was luckier again with my second child.

I recall having the baby as if it was yesterday. I kept asking for the specialist I had attended every month, travelling on the train from Athlone to Dublin as we did not have a car. I thought I was important and that it was important to have the specialist there but he arrived when it was all over. He told me I had a fine son but I already knew that because I had borne him. That was the situation. One attended this man's clinics for nine months and paid him a fat fee. I am sure he was well worth it but he had nothing to do with having the baby because he was not there. In fact, I remember that he arrived wearing tennis shorts and a white singlet. He had been playing tennis as it was a lovely day. Of course, I thought I was the most important woman in Ireland after having a baby boy.

This report is born out of the fact that so many consultants were and are men. This is not an anti-male rant but it is a fact of life. One always went to a male consultant. I do not know if there were women in that speciality at that time. I believe there are very few now; I do not hear of that many. I know how the women who found themselves hearing their cases being discussed in 1998 on "Morning Ireland" must have felt. Many patients found out what happened to them as a result of their cases being discussed on the radio or in The Irish Times or the Irish Medical Times.

One's womb is one's potential fecundity. It is there to harbour an embryo and bring forth a baby. That is so important to a woman. However, this fecund place was annihilated without any consultation or without an attempt to save it and to give the woman involved a future with more babies and a more fulfilled life. I was convinced I would never have a child. One man in Athlone who was not particularly nice used to say to me if I happened to meet him: "No child yet. There is a clocking hen in every family". I have never forgotten him. He took delight from the fact that I had not become pregnant. I can imagine what these women felt.

A 19 year old woman — a teenager — had her womb removed. A future 25 years of fecundity, if she and her partner wished for it, was whipped away from her as if it was something that did not matter. She had it stolen from her at a point when one is low anyway after having a baby and a caesarean section, both of which leave one vulnerable. Then this man loomed over her to perform another operation.

Everybody asks why Michael Neary did this. I am convinced it was due to a wish to dominate women. The woman was on the operating table after having her caesarean section and her lovely baby and now he wanted to rob her of joy and elation and leave her barren. It was biblical in its proportions and in his mind I believe he saw himself as some type of biblical seer who had control over women. He had performed the caesarean section and brought forth the child, which expressed one part of his personality. The other part was the wish to dominate. He had her laid low and she would continue to lie low. He would ensure she would because she would not have another child. It was an awful barrenness of belief and humanity within him.

I do not know how women put up with it. When I could not get pregnant, every day was a barren day for me. Every day I felt I was not fulfilling the role for which I was put on earth. No matter what heights one obtains in every other part of life, the most important part of life is one's family. It is the constant thing one clings to and vice versa. It is the main thing one has from life. Imagine not being able to fulfil that and not being able to plan for a child. The planning is what is important. It means looking forward to it, feeling movement within the womb and the knowledge that one has conceived and can have a child. That is a lovely feeling. Consider how one must feel to be robbed of it forever because of the megalomania of one person who decided one would have no more children and he would see to it that one did not. Imagine a girl of 19, herself a child, having that happen to her.

I fault those around him, his peers and others, who thought he was wonderful and walked on water. However, I also fault the deference, which still exists, in medical circles. There is huge deference on the part of the patient before the consultant. When my husband was very ill he was lucky with his consultant because there was none of that deference. My husband and I were treated as equals and we were told every medical fact we wished to know. Nevertheless, that huge deference exists. One does not question the consultant, least of all when one is a woman. She does not ask what is wrong, what is her diagnostic outlook and what the future holds. One bows to the consultant and, of course, one writes the cheque. One is simply another person in his busy diary.

There are many good consultants but this is a story of deference. One had to bow and scrape to those who were, as it was put, above one. When the legislation is being framed, I hope it deals with issues such as undue deference, the right to know what is wrong and the vulnerability of women who having had one operation faced another one immediately, presumably through the same wound. I hope the Bill can in some way capture that deference. The patient has the right to know everything about his or her body. After all, he or she cannot have any other body.

I cannot envisage the empty feeling of the women who had this procedure performed unnecessarily on them. They woke up each morning to the knowledge that they would never again feel life within them. It must have given them, particularly young women, an awful outlook. I praise Judge Maureen Harding Clark for the concise, analytical way in which she went about her business. I also praise the Tánaiste. I was well able to do otherwise on the Order of Business with regard to accident and emergency units but in this case she addressed the issue swiftly and concisely.

No matter what redress the women get it will never redress the barrenness they must feel. I wish them a measure of contentment in their future.