Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

-----refused to talk to pro-life people.

The point I am making is this. A person who may be communicating, which is what we are talking about, material to the public or a section of a public may not have it in his or her contemplation at all to address his or her point or offer of help to anybody who in that moment might be going to an abortion clinic.They might be hoping that the person who sees it and who might be in a crisis pregnancy in six months' time would know that there is an organisation there that will give a different kind of help to the help the Government wants to give. It is the relative proximity to the institution that makes sense for them to be making the point. If it could be shown that they must inevitably know the person who sees that is the person accessing the service, you get closer to some kind of relationship where a person might feel harassed or intimidated but it is all but impossible given the way abortion has been legalised and is being provided in the country, which is what makes this legislation so patently disingenuous in its intent and scope.

The point is that a person in a democracy must be allowed communicate material to the people and whether it causes them to support or oppose abortion or eventually chose abortion or chose not to have an abortion, it should be possible. That is not harassment. That is not targeting. It is precisely the problem - the Government is criminalising the ordinary communication of ideas. What the Minister has being doing here today by talking about being in the face of somebody is evoking the type of thing that might happen in other jurisdictions, such as the US where people are basically crossing the threshold into abortion clinics and people are loudly and clamorously talking at them. I get that there are issues if that became anything that impedes, harasses or, I go back to public order, threatens, abuses and insults and is obscene. That is not what we are talking about here. We are talking about a much more casual interference with a free and honest expression of ideas by people in good faith who are not out to be in anybody's face. The only point that I accept from the Minister so far this afternoon is that there is the possibility of the Garda warning. I accept that point but I would point out to him that this is precisely where the process can become the punishment so easily and I gave that example. I will not reiterate what I said there.

Let us be honest here. I do not know whether Sinn Féin agrees or disagrees with it. It makes a lot of noise about disagreeing with the Government but when it comes to some of the bad stuff happening in this country, it seems to be in lock step with it. The only opposition these days seems-----