David Norris (Independent)

The Minister of State, Deputy Kathleen Lynch, is a good Minister; she is a decent woman and she was obviously extremely embarrassed by what she had to parrot out today. It was the worst speech I have ever heard her deliver. I will protect her reputation by saying that it was headlined "Speech Material for Kathleen Lynch". I do not believe she would have come out with this drivel. She started by saying she would like to explain precisely what symphysiotomy is but she did not do so. She never mentioned anything about the cruelty, the barbarity and the veterinary practices that were visited upon the unfortunate women, so why hold out the promise and not do so?

A number of things have not really been touched on, although Senator Burke quoted a Supreme Court judgment which gave a very short definition of symphysiotomy. Let us know what symphysiotomy is: it is a cruel and dangerous child birth operation that unhinges the pelvis severing the symphysis joint or, in the case of pubiotomy, which is an even greater aggression, sundering the pubic bones. This was the only country in the civilised world for the last 60 years of the past century to do this.

There was a vested interest in it. The medical profession protected itself. I remember I spoke on this issue on the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill 2008, which was about whistleblowers. People were terrified to speak out on this issue. I remember in 2010 when I raised it again - I have raised it repeatedly - I was told there was going to be a report and that it was going to be referred to the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the very people who were involved in it. I put on the record two years ago that I was not impressed by the representative of the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. Some years ago, it was asked by the same Minister for a report. It gave one page which was as contemptuous as the way in which this House was treated last night. It dismissed everything and it was incorrect to do so. It was the old boys network protecting itself. This was an unnecessary and dangerous operation that had been impugned since 1777 and it was still practised here.

Let us ask why it was practised. I do not often speak well of journalists these days but Marie O'Connor wrote a book about it after she wrote in the Sunday Independent. I gather she is in the Visitors Galley and I would like to salute her because it is a wonderful book. She had the courage to say in this book what lay behind it. A sectarian, religious clique dominated and dictated. The Roman Catholic Church, in particular, always demands the right to interfere in people's sexual and reproductive lives and in a democracy, it should not have that right. I put on record some of what Marie O'Connor stated. Religious beliefs appeared to be central to the latter day practice of these operations in Ireland. Prominent practitioners of symphysiotomy were at the centre of an informal network that included Archbishop John Charles McQuaid and several were members of Catholic action groups such as the Knights of Columbanus, the Guild of Saint Luke, the Society of Saints Cosmas and Damian, a medical association dedicated to put Catholic teaching into clinical practice. The writings of leading symphysiotomy revivalists at NMH, such as Dr. Alex Spain and Dr. Arthur Barry, are indicative of moral not medical difficulties with caesareans. While they accepted its safety, they saw it as morally hazardous. In other words, birth control, which was against the teaching of the church, might be practised and the church would be left without the control it had taken to itself in people's very personal lives.

I was terribly moved by the television broadcast two or three years ago. The impact of this decision by men without consultation with the patients - this often happened without them knowing it was being done to them - meant they were left unable to walk properly, they were not given proper nursing attention afterwards and some of them were permanently incontinent, and all for what? It was for the pursuit of the imposition of the narrow sectarian moral views of one group upon a group of victims - women who, in many cases, did not even know what had happened to them.

I have a description of what it is like, which is worth putting on the record.

Some symphysiotomies, particularly those performed in the aftermath of a Caesarean section, [They did both; these people were unbelievable] were more hideous than others. Those carried out during late pregnancy were almost equally unprecedented. However, even the more usual symphysiotomies, those done during labour, were cruel in the extreme. Women found the experience utterly traumatising: after being left in labour for many hours, they were generally operated upon without warning, in the labour ward or in theatre, under local anaesthetic. And after the surgery, there was still a baby to be born: they were still in labour. [Can we imagine this?] The pain of pushing a baby out with an unhinged pelvis was followed by the agony of walking on it. Instead of immobilising the pelvis, hospital staff further destabilised it by requiring women to walk. Discharged home with a broken pelvis, women were left to sink or swim, without medical advice or painkillers.

That is the most shocking indictment. It was not only the pelvises of those women that were unhinged, the doctors who practised it were unhinged. What did they think they were about? What is the medical profession for? There is primum non nocere. Yes, I dare to speak the classical tongues in search of ancient wisdom. The first rule is, do as little harm as possible. That was not followed. That goes back as far as the Greeks. People 2,000 years ago knew that was the first duty of a doctor.

Forget producing reports, setting up these commissions and investigations and all the rest of the blather. Give the women what they want which is the temporary lifting of the statute bar, as was said by I think Senator van Turnhout. Why not do so? Some of these women only learned 20 years or 30 years later what had been done to them when someone was able to explain their difficulties to them. Let us try to do that. We will support the Minister of State, who I believe would like to do that. It is a limited number of people.

I will suspend my judgment of the setting up of an independent commission of inquiry. I understand there were some difficulties. It is a year old. It has been submitted but let us have it out as soon as possible in order that we can discuss it here. I will not judge this person whoever it was, I do not know whether it was a man or a woman, but whatever academic did it experienced difficulties in getting statistics and so on over a period of a year. Now it is with the Government. Let us publish it and have it out.