Annie Hoey (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I offer my solidarity to Senator Boylan. Those comments are awful and as Senator Clifford-Lee said, many of us have experienced something similar.The vitriol in those emails was horrific, and I am very sorry the Senator received them. It is not acceptable.

I want to quickly address three points. There has been a lot of talk about decent, free speech and this, that, and the other. One would swear we were putting a safe access zone around the entire island. We are not putting a safe access zone around the entire country. The zones will be 100 m outside the place where a person can get an abortion. That leaves a whopping amount of landmass within which people can do these activities according to their own free will, and no one will stop them from doing so. People can do anything they want in those other areas. A zone will be 100 m in diameter around one of these facilities.

In the context of democracy, we understand the basic concept of not being able to do certain things within a certain distance of a polling booth. We recognise it is important for democracy and for all sorts of reasons. We are not saying that such a provision is anti-free speech or is stopping people from doing what they want. We just recognise that it is a basic common sense thing to do within the vicinity of a polling booth.

I am astonished by the way in which this is being portrayed. There is literally an entire country within which people can do those things. We are asking for a 100 m zone through which women and pregnant people can pass with dignity and without fear of individuals coming up to them, after they have made up their minds, made this decision, gone to the registered counsellors, engaged with their GPs, discussed it with their families, or indeed none of the above. We voted to allow them to do that, and that is their business. It has been said that it is doing no harm and that it is just quiet things. I have spoken to and heard from women for whom that was one of the most traumatic and difficult experiences. I just think that is very upsetting.

It is wild that we are even having a conversation about this sort of stuff and flirting with fascism. Under fascism, it would be within a god's whistle and a prayer that a woman would be able to get access to an abortion or birth control pills. It is not exactly a common state of affairs under fascism. I refer to the Rocco Code under Mussolini. That is certainly a twisting and topsy-turvying of the situation. I hate to think what this country would look like under fascism. It would be appalling.

There is absolutely and utterly no country or jurisdiction of which I am aware that has introduced safe access zones legislation in any guise. Ealing Council said that it believes the zones were a proportionate response in order to balance the human dignity of those seeking abortion. Nowhere in this world - I stand open to correction on this - has anyone been prosecuted for having a chat and a coffee. That has never happened. We are talking about a red herring. We are talking about something that has never occurred. It has never happened under safe access zones legislation. Safe access zones legislation works perfectly fine anywhere it has been introduced. The zones provide for the human dignity of those who are going in and out of those service providers, hospitals, GP clinics or wherever.

There is near hysteria and moral panic over something that has simply never happened anywhere else. It just seems crazy. I hope we can get through this. We have 40 minutes left and we would certainly like to see this legislation passed for all the people who have travelled here today. This is moral panic over something that I have not seen happen anywhere in the world.