Mary White (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State has a responsibility to look at the amendment again. I do not how he can reject it after what he heard from the Government side. I refer to the way Senator Keane spoke and how she expressed her knowledge of the situation.

I have discussed this matter. I have been involved with this issue for three or four years and there are people in the Gallery who I have been involved in helping for a number of years. It was Bertie Ahern who asked me to get involved in this issue about three years ago. I discussed this issue with my husband about three weeks ago and he was taken aback. He is up to date on matters but he was quite shocked at what he was hearing and wondered if this was an issue of importance to many people. He was taken aback if the Minister of State knows what I mean by that. I am not taking from him as a person or his intelligence but I had to explain the seriousness of this issue. It is not on the public radar and our duty as legislators is to bring forward issues and legislation that will help to improve the lives of people in our society.

I wish to speak about this from my personal experience when my sister was training to be a midwife in a maternity hospital in this city some years ago. She arrived at my house devastated and said she had been part of a team delivering a baby whose sex was not defined. Is the Minister of State listening to me?