Catherine Noone (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I did not expect Senator Marie-Louise O'Donnell's speech to be so long.

I welcome the Minister to the House and wish him well with the work that is ahead in terms of the referendum that, hopefully, will be in May or June. I thank all of my colleagues here for their kind words. They mean a lot to me. I have had immense support from my own party and support from across the Houses, which is heartwarming and appreciated.

Being Chair of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution has been the biggest privilege of my political career. I am grateful to the Taoiseach for having the courage to appoint me because I was quite green when it came to such a post. He was very fair to appoint me as Chair and I am grateful to him for doing so.

I want to acknowledge my senatorial colleagues as follows: Senator Mullen; Senator Ruane who was Vice-Chair and extremely supportive at all times; Senator Buttimer whose counsel I relied on and who was fantastic to me; Senator Gavan was equally supportive and a wonderful colleague on the committee; and Senator Ned O'Sullivan who is not here today was a very supportive and constructive member of the committee. The committee did a large volume of work in a relatively short period. Many people thought that we would not attain the result that we did. I am very proud of every member of the committee - every one of them - because we worked well together. We achieved our targets in terms of the timescale and getting the work done.

I want to pay tribute to the former Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, who proposed the process. Both he and the process were much maligned by extremes on both sides, particularly by the repeal side. It was an excellent choice of process-----