Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Senator O’Loughlin mentioned Fórsa. In another context, I see that Fórsa raised €250,000 for the Ukraine appeal among its members, and that was topped up by a further €250,000, amounting to a €500,000. I say "Well done" to Fórsa and its members.

The Senator raised a good point about the census. Although there is another dimension to this which is, under the legislation, any person who knowingly provides false information may be subject to a fine of €44,000. There is no exemption in the Act for people who are uncomfortable with a particular question. Decide upfront what the question will be, but do not come up with this disgraceful solution of basically encouraging people to provide false information and then leaving it to the CSO to randomly assign it. That is a complete mess. It is an issue I wanted to raise today, and there are other issues I want to raise about the census in due course.

An urgent matter has arisen that I need to address. In recent days, I have been contacted by several constituents of mine regarding issues they are experiencing with the public consultation process of the three-year review of the abortion legislation. It seems that it is being conducted in an extremely rigid manner through an excessive focus on the Act's operation in a way that is not conducive to gathering the views of a full spectrum of public opinion. Respondents have been told that their submission should be in the form of a completed questionnaire set out by the Department of Health. It asks whether the ambiguous objectives of the Act have been achieved and how the respondent feels the law has operated, both effectively and ineffectively. In essence, the public is being asked to outline how the Act could operate more effectively.

I recognise that legislation specifically provides for a review of the law's operation but it was not necessary for the Minister to interpret that in the narrowest sense possible. By framing it in such a way, respondents are prevented from highlighting several particular failures relating to the operation of legal abortion.Several constituents are finding it difficult to detail issues such as the lack of precautionary pain relief for unborn children in late-term abortions or the shortcomings evidenced in the recent tragic and scandalous baby Christopher case in Holles Street hospital, which was a disgrace on all of the medics who were involved in its handling. How can the public consultation process truly reflect the views of the public at large if these important issues are potentially considered as being outside of the scope of the review? In other recent public consultations, such as the review of ethics in public life that was launched by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, in November 2021, respondents were asked to respond to several open-ended questions and were not obliged to complete a pre-set questionnaire. Why does the abortion review have to be so different?

The constant inability and refusal of the Minister and his officials to engage with people on the other side of the argument from the side that he happens to prefer is an indictment of their democratic credentials. The Minister has to listen to people and let them contribute. When consultation is carried out, it has to be done in a broad and generous way. As it is, members of the public are feeling discouraged from engaging with the review. That is not acceptable; there is a lack of clarity and I ask the Acting Leader to relay to the Minister my view and hope that he will address this and clarify that free-form submissions will be accepted in the conducting of this review process.