Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend those who have drafted the Bill. Together for Safety was set up by a group of women in Limerick in response to protests at their local maternity hospital. Members of this group are not faceless. NGOs and civic society groups play an important role in our democracy. On this narrative of a policy capture, people have campaigned on social issues for decades in this country and now, all of a sudden, there is a policy capture when we start to make progress and the empathy of the Irish people becomes clear and is allowed to flourish. I commend the broad coalition of people who have backed the Bill, from all parties and none, and those who co-signed it. I commend my colleague and comrade, Senator Gavan, on all his work in making the case and ensuring that we in Sinn Féin use our time to debate this Bill.

During the debate, it struck me that at pride protests, when we are busy sharing our love with the city, we pass counter-protests telling us to repent and so on. I have never once taken issue with those people. I am too busy sharing my love with the city to take issue with people calling on me to repent, but I have a real issue with the ability of people to access healthcare in their local community, which the Irish people voted for, being prevented and interfered with. I also have a real issue with women being distressed, stressed out and traumatised by people when they access services. These protests have a chilling effect on the provision of services. All we are asking for, if protests take place, is they do so from 100 m away. That is the size of a football pitch. We are not infringing on people's right to protest. As political activists, protest is a core tenet of our democracy for all of us. I add my voice to the support for the Bill.

On the other recommendations of the Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, I commend the Minister on the allocation of funding for contraception for women and girls aged between 17 and 25. Is there any chance this can be rolled out before August 2022? Is it the Minister's hope, in future budgets, that this will be available to all women and girls who ask for and need it?