Mark Wall (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am particularly proud to co-sponsor this Bill. It is a very important moment for us in this country to have the Bill coming before us. I too pay tribute to the Leader of the Seanad for allowing it to come before us today. That is very important.

I also welcome the Minister of State to the House. This is a very important discussion and we must have more of them. I put on record my thanks to my former colleague, now Deputy Bacik, for her wonderful work on the Bill. We all know what she has done for women's health in this country. She has been to the forefront of so many conversations in this regard about the shortcomings we have in this country in women's health. We need to have more conversations about that in this House and in the Lower House. It is vital that such conversations take place as quickly as possible.

I also pay tribute to my colleague, who is now Lord Mayor of Dublin, as has been mentioned. She was a councillor when the conversations first began. I refer to Alison Gilliland for her work with the INTO. My colleague, Senator Hoey, has outlined the stories the INTO has gathered from across the country on the important issues we are going to deal with through the Bill.

As always, I was especially taken by the Leader's contribution on the past ten days and where we are in this country regarding women's health. As a male politician, I think we are at a point now where we have to look at that again. I am sure this is the starting point. We cannot let the conversation that has happened in the past ten days go by without changing what we do for women in this country, and in particular for women's health. What the Leader has said has brought it home to me and I am sure to every male politician in the Oireachtas, that now is the time.

I listened to the debate in this House and in the Lower House yesterday and what was said about women's health and the need for zero tolerance of gender-based violence. Those are the conversations we have, and these are the type of Bills that we need to introduce urgently in this country so that we can have a republic we are all proud of.

We had cross-party support on Second Stage of the Bill in May 2020 from all Senators who spoke in the House that day. There were also heartfelt stories from those who have been through these experiences. They brought it home to me, which is important. As other speakers have said, the human story is very important. Like me and everyone else in this House, the Minister of State runs clinics on Saturdays and Mondays or whenever we can.When we get that phone call from a couple who want to come to talk to us about IVF or about their experience of the hospital environment, it tends to be a very private conversation. Senator Ahearn and others mentioned the stigma that surrounds this. When those people are in front of one and tell one their human story, it brings home the importance of what we are doing here today and of how we have to help those people and their communities and families because, as has been said, many families do not know that a family member is going through this. Many people go through it alone, which is totally unacceptable. It is important to say, as was said on Second Stage in May and has been said again during this debate, that we are here to help people. That is one of our jobs as legislators and it is why I am particularly proud, as a Labour Party Senator, to have contributed to the Bill.

I look forward to the debate on the amendments over the coming while and to what will be discussed in that regard. I thank the Minister of State and look forward to his contribution. This is a start and it is where we need to go. We need to do so quickly.