John Dolan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

All my life I have attempted to support people with various challenges, many of whom had to make difficult decisions at times of crisis in their lives. For the most part, people, in my experience, make good and sound decisions that are not self-serving. Repeatedly, I have seen families pull together to give somebody who is disabled the best opportunity for a decent life. It is mainly the mother, the female partner or the daughter who is core to that ongoing effort. I ask myself how I can realistically not trust women on this matter. We have a duty as legislators - all 218 of us, the majority of whom are male - to support women as part of the electorate to be in the decision-making process. For example, we trust family carers, and two thirds of those are women, to make very challenging decisions 24-7.

A practical but essential point in this is to continue to improve our services. There should be timely information and non-directive counselling, along with a range of readily available practical services. These are critical as people struggle with this most difficult decision. In Ireland, we do not have a class of people called "the disabled" any more. We have people who live with a disability. People with disabilities, their loved ones, families and friends are keenly interested and have a big stake in this debate. They are listening to it. They also need to be heard in it. How will they hear references to people with disabilities and have they heard references so far? I am not talking about what might be called political correctness. I am asking that references to disability from all quarters respect the sensitivities and full humanity of those who have a disability. The same should be true for women who have terminated a pregnancy and those close to them.

We should have a debate in the Seanad and beyond that respects the immense challenges that women have faced in the past, are facing today and will face in the future. How we speak and our demeanour must be sensitive, thoughtful and respectful. I am thankful there are decision-assisting processes, as I would call them, now available that we did not have in 1983. There will be a referendum commission and the work and report of the Citizens' Assembly. We have the all-party Oireachtas committee report and the determinations of our courts. Generally speaking, we have greater access to information and availability of views and perspectives than we would have had in the past. We will have also learned as to how we conducted ourselves the last time. It remains to be seen but I am hopeful that we will all manage to behave in a respectful and dignified manner, regardless of our strongly-held views.The work of legislators is to make judgments in the public interest. On this occasion, we have the possibility of sharing some of that decision making with the public by Members coming to a decision to hold a referendum and to support that process.

We, as legislators, make many decisions to choose or not to choose a course of action which will have profound outcomes and consequences for people, for example, the making and enforcement of road traffic regulations and regulatory and other standards of health and safety. The regulation of the finance and banking sector has consequences for people. Who can state that what I will simply call shortfalls across those areas have not caused significant negative outcomes and shortened and even ended people's life? Our responsibility for life and death issues is part and parcel of all our work in the Oireachtas. How we choose to deploy our health service budget is another example. Choices are made.

Today, we are dealing with an issue on which it is difficult to have a debate and consider in a dispassionate and open way, yet it is about each of us in a very personal way. We all have been close to the core issues or some have been at the centre of them, yet these insights are not readily available. It is interesting to hear Members speak in a way that I have not heard them before about their own experiences in and around this issue. That is really helpful and I appreciate it.

This issue requires that I strive to act and speak in a non-judgmental and trusting way. This requires that I attribute to others the best of motives regardless of the positions they adopt. There is no place for assertions that ascribe or suggest criminal or immoral conduct because others take a counter course. Getting the best decision, which may not be idyllic, requires more listening, more reflection and less pronouncements. Regardless of what decisions are made this year, this deeply human question remains and the trauma surrounding it will remain. The people of Ireland, the courts and the Oireachtas will be returning to deal with the matter in some way or other in a shorter timeframe than another 35 years. How we collectively and respectfully debate this matter will determine how well we progress from this point to make the best decision we can that is faithful to the common good and in time will help us to make further decisions.

As has been said by many, we must consciously now as never before make decisions as a democracy. We must make decisions about issues that did not surface before for a whole range of reasons. We effectively left these decisions to religious leaders or other proxy decision makers. Now we must be counted. How we deal with the issue is an indication of our ability to develop as a democracy, a democracy in which we progressively give better expression to the fundamental rights that we gave to ourselves and expressed in our Constitution. It is important not to be consumed or overwhelmed by this issue, although it is extremely serious. I trust Irish women and families to consider the possibility of abortion very sensitively into the future, just as they do today. This has never been, is not and never will be an easy decision for women, irrespective of the circumstances or the improvements that we make.

We have built or sustained cultural, political and practical obstacles. These obstacles have made it so difficult for women to come to the decision of what is best for them in their particular circumstances. This is wrong. We can do better. We have the possibility of doing better.