Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

On the laïcité point, I am not sure it is the definition of laïcité that there is civil space from which faith voices have to be completely excluded. As I explained, this is not about a religious view necessarily. Many people who have no religious faith see this issue exclusively through a human rights lens. It was Senator Clonan's first misunderstanding that this was about religious people. He then said ideological. He appeared to accept that this is philosophical. It is about the value we place on human life and to what extent we should protect people's right to communicate freely in our society, especially around life and death issues. Those are the values that are in play. As far as I know, laïcité relates to the institutions of state that should not show favouritism to one faith or another. An ideology of laïcité is built into the French system but I do not think it involves kicking religious voices or faith representatives out of any portion of civil space. It certainly is not about excluding people from public ground and public streets the way the Minister's proposed legislation would do. It is to miscue to try to evoke laïcité.

Senator Clonan referred to protestors he described as performative. He then talked about such protestors outside what he called the provision of healthcare. What I invite him to understand more clearly is that for those witnesses, abortion is not bona fide healthcare. It is a profoundly unjust elective procedure. I am not talking about the necessary medical procedures that can result in the loss of an unborn child. I am talking about elective, voluntary abortion, which is now provided in GP surgeries and hospitals. If people do not see that as healthcare, are they entitled in a democracy to be on the street and in the vicinity of such places, provided they are not targeting the individual or institution, to put a counter-message that is positive? The messages I want to see are those that offer a better solution than abortion. If there is a hope that somebody going into a facility, whom you do not know, might see those messages and might be encouraged to have a conversation with somebody else in their family or otherwise, or to have second thoughts, it would be a good thing if a life were saved. It is all about the how of this.

That is why I again say that the amendment I proposed protects. There is an honourable compromise in that amendment. I am sorry the Minister did not have the generosity to acknowledge that there is an attempt through that amendment to find some sort of via media but, as I said, Borg-like, it is a case of "Computer says no", we will keep going, and we will not open our hearts to the possibility that you might have a heart. That is the problem. I will correct my friend and colleague Senator Conway. There is no question of leaving 100 m. The law, as the Minister has drafted it, would make sure that there is not a 100 m bar. People who protest in the vicinity of Leinster House would not fall foul of any 100 m rule. That is what the Minister is proposing. The amendment I am proposing is to get rid of the 100 m bar but maintain the standard for protest outside. It would apply the Dáil standard everywhere. People would be completely free to protest outside the Dáil, even if it is within 100 m of an abortion facility, provided the protest advocacy or dissent is not directed at a specific, relevant healthcare premises or persons accessing such premises. Let us make the Dáil standard the universal standard. That is the via media that the Minister did not even address his mind to because he was too busy trying to ballyrag, discredit and insult me. I do not mind somebody personally having a go at me. Every word I have said today is truthful. That I can take the book on.

I invite the Minister to retreat from his hardline position and to at least engage in conversation with people he does not like. It does not have to be me. It can be anybody he wants, provided it is somebody who would at least invite him to consider whether the Dáil or Oireachtas standard could be the useful standard to apply across the board, which is to say that a person would be free to engage in lawful protest, advocacy or dissent, provided it is not directed at a specific, relevant healthcare premises or persons accessing such premises. In addition to the public order legislation, which prevents threatening, abusive, insulting or obscene behaviour, that is a formula that could work without attacking freedom of expression, without turning against people who have concerns about abortion and want to witness to them in a public place, notwithstanding that it may be in some way in the zone of a healthcare facility or, as I said, against people on a witness march who might be passing within 100 m. The Minister has a clear formula to work on between now and Report Stage.

I will make a second last point. We should think for a moment about a protest outside a migrant reception facility, as that was mentioned, where asylum seekers might be getting direct provision. We can all see clearly how such a protest should not be allowed once it is in any way directed at a person. That is why I do not like and do not support the idea of protests at people going in and out of a facility in the context of our evolving migration debate. The old laws of Christian charity can apply in a secular society very effectively. Not much of the language needs to be changed to see what human decency requires. Let us say, however, that people were protesting outside an asylum facility or reception centre against the injustice of the way migrants were being treated. Should that not be allowed? In many ways, that is the much more valid comparison. The witness that might take place within 100 m of an abortion-providing facility is effectively a witness against injustice and a call to a better way of doing medicine. It is not about the Government. According to Cork University Hospital, it is about a small number of very powerless people in society, who just seek to witness. Sometimes, it might be prayer. That is not my personal style, but it is that of others in our democracy.

I will speak to what my friend and colleague, Senator Gavan, said about the last thing a woman needs are protestors of any kind. I invite him to think about the possibility that people in this context are not protesting but witnessing. Again, I ask that we apply the standards of what is done and address our minds to the standards of how people witness and make their point, as opposed to the blanket ban, which captures the courteous as well as the aggressive. I am interested in targeting the aggressive. I defend the rights of the courteous. I invite the Senator to do that. He talked about privacy, but there is clearly no invasion of privacy in circumstances where no person standing in the street, 50 yards from Holles Street hospital, knows anything about why a person is walking past him or her on that street, whether or not that person enters the doors of the hospital. There is no attack on privacy. There is no attack on dignity provided nothing in what is being said or displayed offends public order legislation. Respect for the unborn and for the unborn's mother has to be the hallmark of any witnessing outside a facility or within 100 m of a facility that I would support.

I have put it as well as I can. The Minister's only response today has been to attack those of us who are concerned about this legislation and try to portray us as heartless, and wanting to be in people's faces and so on.Caricaturing your opponent, however, is no way to govern responsibly. We have tabled amendments that seek to strike an honourable middle ground. To my mind, they are more constitutionally focused in that they protect freedom of expression, are better proofed against eventual challenge to the legislation and seek to create that balance whereby the same standard can be applied to a protest regardless of whether it is outside Leinster House or anywhere else, that is, that there is no distinction or cordon sanitairebut that the standard is that protest advocacy or dissent can be not directed at a specific relevant healthcare premises or persons accessing one. That is an honourable compromise and I ask the Minister and his officials to think about it between now and Report Stage.