Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

We then come to the Minister's proposed amendment to make it a criminal offence to disclose information as described in section 27(1), presumably as amended. He proposes to make it an offence for which a person will be liable "on summary conviction, to a class A fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or both". I want to make this clear. That is a useless proposal. When I was Attorney General, there was a good deal of upset, particularly on the part of my predecessor, Mr. David Byrne, when a Garda file purporting to identify people who had unlawful abortions in Ireland was revealed to a newspaper. The result was that when the Garda file was given to the newspaper, reporters from that newspaper presented themselves at the doors of various women mentioned in it. This caused absolute outrage among the people who were mentioned in this way.