Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is important to understand - many of us keep emphasising this - that this Bill is about the protection of life of the mother and the child. Every effort is made by all of the medical people working in this area in Ireland to do that in all circumstances. Not every case is the same. Each case must be approached in a different way, and managed in a different way. I have spoken to a number of consultants in the past two days and they all advised me that it is not physically possible to apply an anaesthetic in the way proposed by the amendment. In some of the amendments being put forward, we are trying to restrict what doctors can and cannot do.