Seanad debates

Tuesday, 27 March 2018

An Bille um an Séú Leasú is Tríocha ar an mBunreacht 2018: An Dara Céim - Thirty-sixth Amendment of the Constitution Bill 2018: Second Stage

 

2:30 pm

Photo of Gerard CraughwellGerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

In all honesty, I would rather be standing anywhere else than in this Chamber. I have thought long and hard about whether I would make a contribution at all. Unlike most of my colleagues here, I lived through the 1983 referendum and saw what it did to Ireland and Irish society. As the Minister spoke about where this legislation would go and the plans regarding things like sex education, for a moment, I chuckled to myself for I remember my sex education. It happened on 21 January 1976 between 10.45 p.m and 11.15 p.m. It was the night before I got married and I was driving my mother home. When we stopped at a set of traffic lights, she said to me, "Son, there's something we never spoke about." I said to her, "Mother, we never did and we never will." That was sex education when I grew up. Girls did not get pregnant when I grew up. They went on holidays to Cork or Dublin. We did not have unexpected or crisis pregnancies. We had fallen women who had to be sent away and shunned by our society. When they came back, it was the great unspoken. I know many of those girls today who weep in the evenings over the child they gave away. In some cases, they did not give that child away willingly.

Unlike most of my colleagues, I worked in a Magdalen laundry. I serviced the gas boilers in one. I saw them. I did not see brutality. I just saw Magdalen laundries with dozens of young girls working. It never crossed my mind why they were there. I did not engage too much in it. I was there with my father helping him out. I did not think too much about it. Years later, when I saw some of the stories that broke, it broke my heart. Then we heard about the young girl, Ann Lovett, along with the Kerry babies case and all of the dirty little secrets of Ireland. I think back to those girls who left Galway to go to Cork or Dublin. I think back to the girls who shared my sister's house because they were pregnant. My sister would take in a girl who was pregnant up to the time she delivered the child. I think of the reputation we gave those girls. Did we once point a finger at any of the fathers? Did we once question any of the fathers who walked away having landed a girl in trouble? What did that girl do that was so wrong? She did nothing more than what the guy who impregnated had done. She did what was perfectly bloody well natural. That is all she did.

In 1983, we had the referendum. I remember the bitterness and neighbours and friends on both sides. One thing I see here this evening is the great degree of respect for people's views. I have thought about this for several weeks. Would I shun my responsibility to come into this House because, God damn it, when someone comes in here, they are faced with decisions they never wanted to make? It has happened more often than not. In the previous Seanad, the issues included marriage equality and gender recognition. I never thought I would ever have to face these things but I did and I am glad I did. Now we must face this one. We made a grave error in 1983. We shirked our responsibilities legally. We kicked out a decision to the people and then we spread nothing but bitterness, hatred and arguments. When people came to the door canvassing for one side or the other, if the person showed he or she was not willing, they came back the following night with two or three people. It was intimidation. I am the son of a woman, a woman I loved dearly, and the brother of eight sisters, all of whom I loved dearly. Some of them are still alive, thank God. I am the husband of a wife, the father of a daughter and the grandfather of two beautiful granddaughters. I want the women in my life to be equal to me. That is all I want. I just want them to be equal to me. If there is something that is preventing that, we must move it out of the way and bring forward legislation because there are serious issues. The Minister is going to do that, on which I commend him. It is rather ironic that what one might regard as the weakest Government or a minority Government has brought this forward. Maybe that is the time to do it - to bring forward legislation and a referendum at a time when there is no great dominating power in the State. Maybe now is the time to do it.

I ask for only one thing as we go into this and that is the level of respect I have seen in this room today and indeed the level of respect I have seen in the Oireachtas generally. I have argued with myself and people have spoken to me. We talk about respect for the right to life and respect for human beings. I have to say that it baffles me that some people would desecrate an aborted foetus to make a point and drive home their message. We have had people outside Leinster House with giant-sized photographs. I cannot see what purpose that serves. We must be respectful to one another and listen to each other. I could say, "Dear God, let this be a women's vote and let me walk away hands free, hands in the air and say hey, it's nothing to do with me", but I cannot do that. All I want is for us to go forward. The men of Ireland, the men who are emailing me daily asking me to take a particular side, should ask themselves which side they would be on if they were women and what they would want for their sisters, mothers, daughters, granddaughters and granddaughters' granddaughters, because the decision we make over the coming months in this country will have ramifications for generations to come. All I want is that when we are finished, we can all still talk to one another, look one another in the eye and say we did what was right in our own minds. That is why I respect my colleague, Senator Gallagher, who just said that he will vote against this. It took bravery and guts to stand up here knowing what he will get outside of here. Other people have stood up and said they will vote on the other side. That takes guts. Let us respect everybody. I commend the Minister on bringing the referendum forward. I look forward to what I hope is a respectful debate in our society.

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