Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend Senator Noone on the role she played as chairperson of the Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution. She was calm, patient and fair and her conduct as chairperson was everything for which an institution such as this could hope. Those traits are all the more impressive when one considers the issue at hand and the behaviour of some people.

For quite some time, it has been apparent that we would discuss the report of the joint committee during our first sitting week after the recess. It is worthy of attention that, on our return to the Seanad and during the first statements of 2018, which marks the centenary of women’s suffrage in Ireland, we are debating where Ireland stands regarding women’s health care and rights. Over the course of this year, the Oireachtas will mark the work of the suffrage movement in Ireland dating back to the early 19th century. There will be cultural, historical and educational events involving a celebration of the lives of women involved in legislative reform and those elected to Parliament. In the words of Rita O’Hare, they were "brave, beautiful and extraordinary women who defied the social mores of that era, who came from every class and creed and background, from rural communities, from the slums of this city and those who rejected the confines of class and privilege to join that combination of the national movement, the women’s movement and the labour movement in declaring that they stood for the republic." This centenary year is not just about marking an anniversary, it is about continuing a struggle. Those women struggled for agency, not only for themselves, their sisters or their comrades but also for the independence of a nation.

Having watched much of its proceedings and having already reflected on the work of its chairperson, I also commend members of the joint committee such as Deputy Louise O’Reilly and Senator Lynn Ruane. They and others on the committee have yet again proven that this institution and our society is best served by a diversity of imagination and representation. Only 35 of 158 Deputies in the Dáil, or 22%, and only 19 of 60 Senators, or 32%, are women. Something needs to give.

My sister and my female friends stood with me when I demanded equality. I now stand with them and with mná na hÉireann. We are on the other side of a Citizens’ Assembly and an Oireachtas committee. It is time to repeal the eighth amendment, to begin as broad a conversation as possible and to bring as many people with us as we can. As has been said, this is not the 1980s. The information is accessible and the factual evidence is there.

During the committee's proceedings, it was stated that one in eight Irish women of child-bearing age have had abortions. This is a truly diverse and far-reaching issue. It has become obvious that we need the ability to legislate. To so do, we must remove women’s reproductive health from Bunreacht na hÉireann in order to robustly respond to the unpredictable and exceptional aspects of many pregnancies. We also need to formulate legislative responses to technological and medical advances. Article 40.3.3° does not take account of the unpredictability of any given pregnancy and cannot respond to effectively safeguard a woman’s health. Many witnesses to the joint committee confirmed that the eighth amendment restricts our doctors and medical staff in their response to guarding a woman’s health. It is time to listen to our medical professionals. They will play a central role in this campaign. We need only reflect on the case of Savita Halappanavar to know that the ambiguity of our laws has led to uncertainty in medical responses. Savita was a victim of that ambiguity.

I say to those who support the eighth amendment that to reduce the need for such a service we must work together to give women a full range of accessible contraceptive options and a fully effective and inclusive sex education curriculum, including modules on consent. To reduce the number of delayed abortions overseas, we must make provision for this medical procedure in Ireland. The eighth amendment does not save lives but, rather, puts women’s lives at risk and supports a regime of medically unsupervised abortions via pills ordered online.

I want to commend the brave women who have come forward to share their stories of difficult decisions made and of shame shipped overseas. Those stories have been told in a selfless manner that articulates difficult circumstances and they have been put into the public space so that we, as policymakers and citizens, can listen and reform a law in order that others will not have to confront the same situations. Previous Governments passed the buck because they did not favour the electoral turbulence of taking action on this challenging issue. We need to have the bravery, where previous administrations did not, to do what is right without taking account of re-election. We need to listen because the calls have never been louder to hold a referendum on repealing the eighth amendment and we need to confirm that as soon as possible.

I am of the view that the referendum will pass and that the core human decency of the Irish people will prevail. Every day, I see young people demanding agency and independence. We saw that during the referendum on civil marriage equality. Older generations with different experiences will expose the misogyny and ingrained sense of prejudice historically experienced by the women in this State. The eighth amendment is the biggest obstacle to women’s health care in this State. It is a representation of a State and society that did all they could to control and police our bodies and sex lives. It condemned and continues to condemn women to be victims of a dodgy and obscured version of morality. We live in a State that has condemned independently minded women, whether through the denial of basic contraception, upholding a rape culture or incarcerating women in laundries, mother and baby homes or other mental institutions. We have stigmatised women for having sex, yet have been seemingly oblivious to the lack of any equal moral standard expected of heterosexual men. We stigmatised Ann Lovett, a 15-year-old girl from Granard, County Longford, who died beside a grotto in 1984 and who felt she had nowhere to turn. We owe it to her, to every woman who has travelled in fear of criminalisation, to our generations who deserve better and who deserve universal health care and, in this centenary year, to the women of an Chéad Dáil not to be so hypocritically reliant on British policy.