David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It could be. I want to strike a note now and say I think it should be. It is important in a human sense that those women who have an abortion and then have an emotional reaction should be provided with counselling. The three-day waiting period is daft. It has an impact on the other positions taken by the legislation because we provide for abortions in certain circumstances, for example, in the case of a pregnancy of under 12 weeks’ duration, that can be accessed quite easily. However, the 12 weeks is reduced to nine if there is a delay of three weeks. That is another situation in which we need to be careful.

Trinity College initially refused to make me a tutor because I was a fairy. It eventually made me a tutor and gave me a chamber of 70 students who were all female. Trinity would not trust me near a man. Among these 70 young women a crisis pregnancy would arise approximately once a year. They would come to me in floods of tears, and I would listen and try to take the situation down a bit. I would ask if the man was still involved and engaged with her, if he was still supportive, if her family knew and so on. I would take the temperature down, and then tell her that the best thing I could do was to refer her to a non-directive counselling agency. There was such an agency in Mountjoy Square and I sent the women there. One girl from ten had an abortion; the others did not.

I am perfectly certain that if non-directive counselling had not been available, a majority of those girls would have had an abortion. They would have gone over to London in misery, fear and anxiety, gone into a telephone box, found a telephone number and phoned an abortion clinic. They would have had the abortions then come back to Ireland on the mail boat without any counselling, unable to tell people or to share the story when they came back. It is good that those days are gone.

I will end as I started by paying tribute to my colleague, Senator Bacik. Without her efforts we would not be here today. I congratulate the people as well. In referendum after referendum in recent years they have shown wisdom, maturity, decency and compassion. Like several others in this House, I was surprised by the margin of the vote. It is very clear what the people want, and it is up to us to deliver it for them.