Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I wish to speak against amendments Nos. 2 and 3. On Committee Stage, we heard at length from Senator Mullen about how people wanted to pray outside hospitals and that we needed to respect their right to prayer. I pointed out to the Senator that the women were telling us they found those prayer vigils to be intimidating when they walked past them and that we needed to listen to the women and their experience of what they felt when they walked past those prayer vigils. I also said that we are always hearing how we have to understand and respect the people who voted "No" to repeal.

On the back of me saying that on Committee Stage, my contribution was clipped for social media. It was circulated that I was calling for the abolition of any prayer and that I was against any praying. That led to a complete pile-on. These so-called decent individuals who just want to pray, are law abiding and just want to exercise their freedom of expression and religion led to me getting a series of emails. I want to read into the record what some of those emails said because it is important from the point of view of the supporters of those so-called upstanding decent Christians who just want to pray outside medical facilities. The emails started with:

...you Liberal retarded wanker. F--- multiculturalism, f--- diversity, f--- lgbtq you are ALL ANTI CHRISTIANS in a Christian land. Question - just how do you f----s think Christians will react when, as a fair few are, Awakening to the bullshit. Keep caring about you're money, none of you can take it with you when God through Jesus destroys you Anti Christian TURNCOATS.

There then followed, in another email from the same individual, "[do] you ever get the feeling people are watching [you] ... [you] Sick whore".

That is what I got because I said it may be that people want to pray, but they can pray 100 m down the road. Nobody is stopping them from doing that, but they are praying outside a healthcare facility, be it a GP's premises or a hospital, and whether women are going to access an abortion or whatever healthcare facilities, they do not need to run the gauntlet, as Senator Clonan said, of walking past individuals. It is just wrong. Even in my own family, I have had someone who has to carry a stillborn child out. She cannot walk past Holles Street hospital, let alone with protests, because of her experience, but you want them to walk past so-called decent, law-abiding citizens who send this type of muck to democratically elected individuals.