Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I was responding to an inaccuracy in what the Minister said. It is inaccurate. I did not say he was incompetent and dishonest; I offered alternatives. I stand by my position that it is either incompetent in terms of the position the Minister holds or dishonest to pretend in any way that the people of Ireland on 25 May instructed the Government to introduce this abortion legislation in full measure. They might have been aware that it was the Government's intent but they also expected that the 34% who voted "No" and the "Yes" voters who did not want to go as far as the Government wants to go would be represented, presumably proportionally, in Oireachtas Éireann. That has not happened. One reason it has not happened is that the Government has tried to claim the politicians elected to the Dáil and Seanad were under some kind of instruction of honour to carry out everything the Government said it intended to carry out. That is simply not true. Nothing the Minister can say, accidentally or intentionally, can make it true.