Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Shameful stuff.

With the greatest respect, because there are colleagues who take a different view on this, I would ask for this debate to be constructive on all sides. Surely we have earned that much. The Seanad can lead the way in this respect.

It is real progress, and yet, and I mean this respectfully, a missed opportunity in some respect. I will cite one example in particular. The vast majority of members of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, of which I was a member, were agreed that decriminalisation was necessary and yet it is not happening. I am an optimist and I would be optimistic. In particular, I am looking at my colleagues here who were on the committee. We should be able to work together on this and improve this Bill and we should have enough votes to do so. After all of this time, now is not the time to be quiet on the issue of decriminalisation.