Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank all colleagues for their contributions. It is a timely debate in the Seanad today. I want to acknowledge the support broadly across the Seanad. Obviously, there are those who disagree with the legislation, and I fully respect that, but there is broad support for it in the Seanad and the Dáil. The Bill has passed all Stages in the Dáil, and we are now here on Committee Stage in the Seanad.

It is timely that we are having this debate today. I had the great pleasure of being able to bring a memorandum on women’s healthcare that is very relevant to the Bill to Government this morning. Colleagues will be aware that in 2022, we launched our first ever women’s health action plan, which is a two-year plan. Ireland is one of the only countries in the world to have done this. I acknowledge the work of healthcare workers and my officials right across the country. If all aspects of healthcare were picked up and run with the same gusto as that relating to the women’s health action plan, we would certainly have fewer debates in this Chamber about things that need to be fixed. I am happy to report that important progress has been made over the past two years. This Bill is another important step in ensuring that we have fit-for-purpose healthcare services for women in Ireland but, furthermore, our ambition is to be recognised around the world as one of the most progressive and most advanced countries for high quality, accessible healthcare services for women. We are on the way and we will launch a new two-year women’s health action plan soon. I very much look forward to coming back and updating colleagues on that.

What is before us today is part of the new philosophy which says that women must be able to have access to the best healthcare services that can be provided, be it in respect of maternity care, endometriosis, perinatal mental health teams or advanced menopause treatments and services we are putting in place. There are the see-and-treat gynaecology clinics and so on.

Critically, and probably uniquely, when it comes to access to termination of pregnancy services, there is an extra layer we need, which is to make sure that women have unimpeded access, that they cannot be harassed, bullied or intimidated and that they cannot have people trying to influence what, as Senator Garvey said, is never an easy decision for any woman to make. I was in Sligo University Hospital on Friday to open the 16th see-and-treat gynaecology clinic. Believe it or not, the healthcare workers there, by means of this new approach, have reduced the waiting list for women to access gynaecology services from four years. Imagine that from the initial referral by a GP to seeing a hospital-based gynaecologist there was a waiting list of four years. It is now four weeks. That is our ambition in women’s healthcare. Of course, no woman going to access the see-and-treat gynaecology clinic in Sligo University Hospital walks in there afraid of being threatened, abused, harassed, bullied or intimidated.It is just not part of the service. When it comes to termination of pregnancy services, uniquely, or at least I hope it is unique, we know from reports right across the country, from listening carefully to women and from listening to our healthcare workers that in some cases women are being harassed, intimidated and abused. This is unfortunate and regrettable. We have seen similar attempted coercive behaviour directed towards our healthcare professionals as well. It is my position, and that of the vast majority of people, that such very unpleasant behaviour is completely unacceptable. Any man, woman or child in our Republic must be able to access all healthcare services without any sense of concern for any of the issues we have raised here. That goes for termination of pregnancy services along with everything else.

While I acknowledge some of the essential intent behind the tabling of these two amendments - I agree that we must have open and free debate in our Republic, in our universities, colleges and institutes of higher education and in our secondary schools and everywhere else - this Bill imposes a very modest requirement on any higher education authority. All it says is that if you have a health centre, GPs and health services - the ones that qualify in terms of termination of pregnancy services, the ability to access medications, etc. - on your campus, women must be able to access them without any worry that they will be harassed, intimidated or interfered with in any way. These are not easy times. This is not an easy thing for a woman to do.

My view, like what is enshrined in the legislation, is very modest. Of course there should be debate on all manner of things in our higher education authorities, including termination of pregnancy services. Abortion and a wide range of other issues, which we deal with here in the Oireachtas all the time, are debated in universities and higher institutes, as they should be. All we are saying is that such debates should not take place within 100 m of where women need to access services. That is it. No one is saying you cannot debate it. Fill your boots. Debate it. Say what you want to say. Be as antagonistic or as thought-provoking as you need to be. Let us engage in rigorous debate, but let us not do it within 100 m of where women are trying to access services. That is it. That is all we are asking.

For those reasons, I cannot accept the amendments. I fully support freedom of speech. I fully support rigorous debate in our colleges but if we are having a debate about whether a woman who could be walking across a campus somehow should not be for whatever reason accessing healthcare services - if that is the debate one wants to have about her choice - we are not saying, "Do not have the debate"; we are saying, "Give her 100 m so she can access her healthcare services". That is it. That is all we are doing.

Furthermore, I have asked my officials to engage with the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science such that if there is a higher education authority whereby, through the layout of its campus, it potentially becomes an issue in terms of having the kind of debates we must have in our society and in our colleges, we would work with the colleges to that effect.