Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Leader may recall that before Christmas I asked her - and she agreed - to organise a debate with the Minister for Health present about the working of the new abortion law in the light of the troubling research done by some UCC researchers on the provision of abortion in Ireland. That was published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. As Members will be aware, the three-year review of Ireland's abortion law is scheduled to take place this year as required by the legislation. When that legislation took effect in 2019 the then chief executive of Britain's largest abortion provider tweeted that to her amazement Ireland now had a more permissive abortion law than even England had. Everything that has happened since proves her assessment to be correct, with 6,666 abortions in Ireland in the first year. This represents an increase of between 40% and 75% on the number of abortions in the previous year, depending on how we count it.

Listeners to "Today with Claire Byrne" on RTÉ yesterday would have been left a rather different impression by the item I heard. It was a 14-minute package on the review and featured three spokespersons for the pro-abortion position and just one pro-life representative. The distinct impression was given that the new law was extremely restrictive and that few abortions are taking place. By any objective measure that could not be further from the truth. Under the new law babies, having survived the abortion procedure, are being left to die alone without receiving any medical or palliative care. Doctors are now being trained to perform ghastly dilation and extraction late-term abortions even though voters were promised this would never happen. Over €20 million of taxpayers' money has been spent to date on the roll-out of abortion provision but no money has been spent on promoting positive alternatives to abortion. It is a tragic situation but a listener would never think that from listening to RTÉ. If a listener were to rely on RTÉ to bring any of those harrowing details he or she would never hear them because RTÉ does not interest itself in that side of the story.

That prompts two reflections. The Eoghan Harris era may be over but the culture of behind the scenes manipulation of analysis, failure to tell certain truths and unseen manipulation of the public debate, of which Harris was a part back in the day in RTÉ, has not disappeared from RTÉ. This is especially the case in the coverage of social issues and especially on the issue of abortion.

That prompts a second reflection relevant to the people who are indignant about that and who decide to withhold their licence fee as a result. We hear from Jon Williams of RTÉ every time there is a positive or good programme and he says it justifies the licence fee. Many people believe they are not being fairly treated. These comprise the one third of the electorate who voted against repeal of the eighth amendment and many more who voted for repeal but who have been shocked by the extent of the new legislation. Many of these people do not believe they are getting fair treatment by RTÉ. A decision by them to withhold their licence fee is frankly one that I would support at this stage, because something needs to change about the way the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster is treating important social issues.