Seanad debates

Wednesday, 10 November 2021

Safe Access to Termination of Pregnancy Services Bill 2021: Second Stage

 

10:30 am

Photo of Ned O'SullivanNed O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This a very important debate and I commend Senator Gavan, his colleagues and the other signatories to the motion. There is something déjà vu-like about speaking immediately after Senator Mullen and disagreeing with him. I do not know if I have the stomach for much more of this at my age because I tend to agree with the Senator on virtually every other standpoint that we share.

Three years ago, the Irish people went to the polls and made an emphatic decision. I thought that decision was settled for the remainder of my political lifetime. I regret we have to debate the issue again so soon. I only hope that it will not give rise to the emotional extremism we always experience when we debate something to do with abortion. I just hope the debate will be civil and carefully worded. I played a part in that last campaign along with Senator Chambers. I was on the Oireachtas committee that brought forth the wording of the motion that was put to the people. That is why I am in the Chamber tonight because it has had consequences. To paraphrase my fellow county-man, The Ó Rahilly, if you are going to wind the clock, you had better be prepared to hear it strike.

There is no shortage of free speech in this country, thanks be to God. There is total freedom of expression in this country. Do the people who are on the street shouting, megaphoning and all the rest of it, ever appreciate that those freedoms do not obtain in countries such as Russia, China, Cuba, North Korea and now, apparently, Nicaragua, sadly? I often wonder if people take it for granted that we have the right to express ourselves like that, which we do. The movement towards people power has a good history in this country. It was Daniel O'Connell, all those years ago, who called monster meetings and managed to put major pressure on the Tory government of the time. It was very effective. We paid tribute this morning, rightly so, to the late Austin Currie. He, John Hume, Seamus Mallon and all those other great people in the early civil rights movement in the North effected major change by bringing people out onto the street and through people power. As I said, they did not have to shoot or kill anybody in doing so.

Free speech is available in this country. The right to protest is important, once it is not abused. We sometimes see it abused, most remarkably in the terrible way the then Tánaiste, Joan Burton, was blaggarded in Jobstown by an absolute mob, when she and her young female assistant were locked into their cars for a number of hours. It was a horrendous thing, especially for anybody like me who suffers from claustrophobia. The right to protest can be abused. We have seen that on television at night with different protests.

While it may not be as extreme an instance as the one I referenced, what is going on at the hospitals is very regrettable and has to stop. I speak for myself, but if I am going into hospital, even for a routine procedure, I am not a happy camper. I am nervous, worried about getting injections, what the pain level will be like and, maybe, what will show up. Imagine going into hospital, having come to what is probably the biggest life decision a person will ever make, which is something as important as terminating a pregnancy. I just cannot imagine what it must be like for those individuals, having come to that decision, I am sure in consideration with their partners and so on, to then have to run the gauntlet of people who are, in their view, morally educating them on the rights or wrongs of their decision. Protest and free speech are important. It is great that we have them in Ireland, but they have been both well used and abused. I believe this is an abuse.

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