Paul Bradford (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank my colleagues for presenting these amendments to us. At their core, they are the type of political shades of grey which generally make politicians shudder. I heard the Minister respond to a similar series of amendments in the Dáil and I presume I can, with reasonable accuracy, predict what he is constitutionally and politically obliged to say in response to the amendments. Indeed, Senators Colm Burke and Ivana Bacik have given an overview of why the amendments are constitutionally outside the remit of what we can consider within the legislation. Notwithstanding that, I believe they are certainly worthy of reflection and debate.

I have been around this place of politics a long time. Weeks and months come and go, and years pass, and occasionally there comes a week or ten days where, within that period, we get a particularly insightful overview of life. There was a week last year in September or October, although I cannot put a date on it, where, within the course of 48 or 72 hours, I attended two fascinating, troubling, uplifting, depressing and informative meetings. The first meeting I attended was at the request of Senator Bacik, who brought to the AV room the women, and their husbands and partners, who wanted to tell us their sad, emotive, powerful and sometimes angry stories of the difficulty they faced. This was the group referred to in very fine detail by Senator Averil Power, Termination for Medical Reasons. A bit like the GPO in 1916, half the Oireachtas now appears to have been at that meeting, but I attended that meeting and there were perhaps six or seven Members of the Oireachtas and five or six staff there. Their stories were powerful and sad. It was impossible to give a satisfactory answer to the concerns, the queries and the demands of those unfortunate prospective parents. I certainly did not have any words of consolation. I left that meeting both upset and concerned because it was not possible to tell those prospective mothers and their partners what they wished to hear. It was certainly a very upsetting afternoon for me.

Then, 48 or 72 hours later, in the same room, at the behest of, I believe, Senator Mary Ann O'Brien, who was one of the organisers of the meeting, I attended a session with the group called One Day More - parents, mothers, husbands and partners whose choice was perhaps different but in one sense the outcome was the same in that they were the parents of children who were born dead or born dying. They explained to us the horror stories which they had to endure, the lack of support which they felt and the lack of facilities. They decided to proceed with the pregnancies and, presumably, in the vast majority of cases the babies were born either dead or were born alive but dying, and died perhaps an hour, a day or a week later.

Both sets of parents faced the same mountain. Some felt they were just able to climb the mountain and others felt they were not. We cannot be judge and jury, but both told hugely sad tales. Without trying to upset my good friend and colleague, Senator Marie-Louise O'Donnell, I would have to agree with Senator Healy Eames that, perhaps, if there was any degree of happiness in either room, if there was any degree of satisfaction, for me, and I can only speak as one who observed both sets of parents, the second meeting was slightly more uplifting.

The question I must pose to myself concerns what we can do to help both sets of prospective parents. Given the Bill before us for consideration and the constitutional provision, we can do very little but at least we can try to provide some degree of support, some additional facilities. I heard the Minister, Deputy Reilly, and other Ministers last week in the other House quoting Dr. Anthony McCarthy who, in dismissing some of the amendments tabled in the other House, pointed out the very inadequate psychiatric and psychological and other supports that are available to prospective mothers facing crisis pregnancies, whatever may be the reason for the crisis. Even though we have a broken economy, one point we can all unite on is the need to invest in further psychiatric, psychological and other supports. It was frightening to hear Dr. McCarthy concede on the radio, as I am sure he would have done in hearings in the Houses, that virtually no levels of support are available. We must tackle this together to ensure that support and advice are available.

Yesterday, in the inadequate time available to us on Second Stage to discuss the Bill in its entirety, I referred to the fact that even when the Bill has come and gone, with all its political consequences, there will still be 4,000 or 5,000 Irish mothers who go every year to Britain to have abortions. Wherever the abortion happens, whether in Britain or Ireland, it is a tragedy for everybody. Much of that comes about because of the lack of support. We may have removed the stigma of single parenthood, or pretend we have, but we are still failing to provide sufficient resources for mothers who choose that route. That is a debate for another day but we cannot move away from it.

On the second part of the Senator's amendment, in respect of rape and incest, it is beyond any of us to pronounce verdicts or certainty. The one thing we all agree on is the horror of rape, the shocking crime it is. Does one solve one crime by causing another difficulty? In the days of capital punishment did the fact that a murderer was executed ease the pain and suffering of the family of a murder victim? I am not sure it did. That may be a simplistic response to some of the very sensitive and complex arguments presented so well by Senators O'Donnell and Mac Conghail. It is a little beyond me at present to try to argue this. Senator Norris spoke about the importance of the word "truth". If we try to keep that at the centre of our deliberations we must realise it never has been the case that two wrongs make a right, or that easy solutions are always the correct ones.

I do not envy the Minister his task. It is relatively easy for him to respond to these amendments as part of the Bill but the issues involved will not go away and will come before him, his Government and all of us again. We must just try to work together in as mature and realistic a fashion as possible to deal with the matter. I thank Senators for their amendments. I wish there was an easy answer but it is part of the complexity of both politics and life that for some questions there is not an easy answer. Perhaps that is why we are here, as legislators. I think back to the meetings I attended last October and November, powerful meetings with powerful presentations and people who chose different routes. I cannot condemn anybody for the route they have chosen.