Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senators for their contributions. I particularly welcome the group, Together for Safety, that has come here today. I acknowledge the great work its members have done and the advocacy and the energy the group has brought to this important issue.

The most important thing to state is that we are legislating for safe access zones. That is happening. It is in the programme for Government; we are doing that. It is for the Oireachtas to decide whether it will be a version of this Bill, which would require significant changes, and we can go through those points later, or whether it happens in the form of a new Bill being brought in on an all-party basis. We are, however, legislating for these safe access zones. This is happening. Termination of pregnancy services are legal. They were agreed by an overwhelming majority in a referendum. It is completely unacceptable for any woman to be harassed and intimidated in accessing such services. It is completely unacceptable for any clinician to be harassed or intimated, or worse, in providing these services. We are not going to stand for that.

A view has been expressed to me through the avenue of legal opinion, and it is also held by An Garda Síochána, that additional powers are not required. The current powers are sufficient. It is not a view I agree with and not one that I have accepted. It is not the view of this House or, I believe, of the Lower House. We are legislating. This is happening. These sorts of tactics and intimidation are not okay. I have spoken to GPs who have been on the receiving end of this type of treatment, in cases where they had their clinics are beside their homes, with entry through the same gate. I have been on the receiving end of this type of behaviour as well, although not relating to the termination of pregnancy services. My children have been on the receiving end of it. I know what it feels like and I know what it feels like as a parent when one's home is targeted. We will not stand for women in this country being intimidated, attacked, abused and moralised at when accessing healthcare services. The only question I am concerned with is determining the quickest and most robust way to get us to enacting the legislation. That is it. That is all I am interested in.

For us to do this, though, we must be really honest with each other. This is complicated. This measure was promised years ago. It was not legislated for by the previous Government, and that was partly because the previous Minister was presented with a significant amount of legal opinion which said that this type of provision was unnecessary and unconstitutional or would have too much of a chilling effect on civil liberties. We hold civil liberties to be sacred in this country and a delicate balance must be found. An Garda Síochána informed my predecessor and the Department at the time that these powers, this law and the fulfilment of this promise was not necessary. It is a complex subject.

In responding to this legislation, I have pages and pages containing legal opinion on why various parts of it would not work. We discussed much of what I am referring to on Second Stage. Therefore, I reiterate that we must be honest in this regard. What we are trying to do here is difficult. If it had been straightforward, an Act would have been passed by now. It is not easy to do this, and some trade-offs are required. We are pushing up against civil liberties when we do this. We all take this point deadly serious. We must, therefore, get this legislation right. What we need to enact is legislation that is legally robust. I think it will be challenged in the courts. It will certainly be assessed to see if a constitutional challenge can be taken. The legal advice I have is that the Bill before us, as it stands, or even with minor amendments, would not survive a constitutional challenge. We must, therefore, make some root-and-branch changes to this Bill or draft something else. Both those options are possible. First and foremost, however, the resulting legislation must be legally and constitutionally robust.

The legislation must also be effective. We must be clear regarding our policy intent. Are we talking about safe access zones around maternity units? We are. Are we talking about safe access zones around GP clinics? I believe we are. Are we talking about safe access zones around pharmacies? I am not sure we are, but this Bill would bring that about. Are we talking about safe access zones around the offices of students' unions? I do not think we are. The legal opinion I have, though, is that this legislation would do many things which I do not think many of us want. For example, if 100 m safe access zones were to be created in somewhere like Dublin city around every pharmacy, GP and family planning clinic, etc., then we would end up in a situation where we could not have legitimate protest or demonstrations, either for or against aspect of the termination of pregnancy.

This is not to critique the Bill. This is an incredibly complicated subject. It is why we do not have such an Act in place now. I am only saying that we must find a delicate and legally and constitutionally robust balance. The legislation we enact in this regard must be enforceable and it must be cognisant of civil liberties. That is something we, as legislators, hold sacrosanct. We have important and significant protections for our civil liberties in Bunreacht na hÉireann and in European law. Any time we seek to make an exception to those provisions, and this is what we would be doing, we would be carving out an exception in this regard and we must be cognisant of doing so in the appropriate way.

We need a Bill that fulfils the policy objectives here and we must be clear about what those objectives are. Is it intended to cover GP clinics, pharmacies, family planning centres and so on? What kinds of protests and demonstrations and what type of expressions of freedom of speech will be acceptable in those zones?Is any kind acceptable? Are some kinds acceptable but not others? We need to be really clear on the policy objective. This needs to a cross-party decision to the greatest extent possible.

I was asked, correctly and very directly, what has happened since October. A lot of work has gone on. There has been a lot of analysis of this Bill. I have been pushing this very hard within the Department. The unit has also been working on assisted human reproduction, which I know the Senator is also very interested in. It has been pushing both and has run up against some very serious legal challenges as to how to put this in place.

We have also instigated the review of the legislation on the termination of pregnancy. I take the point that we should not tie the publication of the heads of a Bill or the passing of this Bill to the outcome of the review of the termination of pregnancy legislation but we are in the middle of a really comprehensive consultation with women who are using these services, clinicians who are providing them and the wider public and civil society. This has been discussed directly with the chair of the review group and access to services is within the scope of the current consultation. I am not going to wait months for a final report on phase 1. As has been discussed with the team and the chair, we also need to draw in those experiences and those testimonies. It is very important that we do so. We should not finalise a Bill and then listen to what this big consultation has said and realise that we have missed things. It is a shorter-term thing. It is not a matter of pushing it out to the end of the year or anything but we need to do that as well.

Yesterday, I wrote to the Chair of the Joint Committee on Health and we also had a chat earlier on today. I told him that I want to bring the officials in the Department of Health who are immersed in the legal challenges, the opportunities and the different options that are available to a cross-party group. That could be the Joint Committee on Health. I have written to the committee asking whether it could free up time within the next four weeks. I am not talking about a session of one or two hours; this is going to take a bit of time. The committee is going to consider my request and come back to me very shortly. If it cannot free up time, and it may not because I know it is flat out and is meeting three times this week, we are going to convene an all-party group to bring together people who are interested in this. The group will have a detailed conversation with officials from the Department of Health. We have received detailed advice from the Department of Justice and could potentially bring in other officials, as required. We need to spend a bit of time, on an all-party basis, deciding what we want to achieve and identifying the genuine legal challenges we need to overcome to make sure this is robust, stacks up and will survive any challenges. We then need to decide how to roll it out. That is what I am proposing to do.

The Government will not be opposing the Bill before the House. There is support for this Bill right across the House, which is very welcome to see. I will also not be opposing any of the amendments. Colleagues have asked why the Government has not tabled amendments. The reason I have not tabled any amendments is that the officials are still working through exactly how this can work. We all need to be honest with one another. The advice I have been given is that it is hard to get this right. If it was easy, there would already be an Act. Rather than tabling amendments, we need to have this conversation in the coming weeks. We need to agree on the policies, be honest with each other and listen to the officials with regard to legal challenges, operational challenges and enforcement challenges. We then need to figure out a way forward and then either table very significant amendments to the Bill or redraft it. From my perspective, it is a matter of determining the quickest route to getting the right legislation on the Statute Book. That is my contribution for now.