Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

This amendment provides that in page 6 and between lines 15 and 16, the following words be inserted: "Nothing in section 2(2) shall prohibit a person from engaging in debate or lawful protest, advocacy or dissent on premises occupied by a designated institution of higher education, provided such debate, protest, advocacy or dissent is not directed at a specific relevant healthcare premises or persons accessing a relevant healthcare premises.”

It should seem obvious to everybody that if there is one place where there should be a hermetically sealed right to protest, it is an institute of higher education, but even there, these days, we see the woke prosecution of trying to close down freedom of speech in certain areas. It has not been so bad in Ireland so far but you certainly sees it in the context of the horrific events that are going on in Gaza, leading to protests on campuses in America which involve one side trying to close down the other's right to have a differing point of view.

With universities, going back to our own tradition in Ireland, we had John Henry Newman, now Saint John Henry Newman, who established what was originally the Catholic University and, through various iterations and change, leading to what is today UCD. People may remember from our schooldays that among the examples of English prose to be studied was Newman's The Idea of a University. John Henry Newman associated with a particularly visionary approach to higher level learning, an approach which emphasised the creation of a forum where people could seek wisdom, engage with ideas and so on. That is and should remain a vital part of what goes on in universities and institutes of higher education today, and yet we see it under threat in various ways. These days there are student protests going on in Trinity College Dublin. I do not need to get into the ins and outs of those but I think everybody would agree that students have a right to protest respectfully and not, obviously, a right to damage property or to endanger other persons. Clearly, we would recognise that it is almost mandatory in student life to be involved in protests.

In my own student union days in Galway, I remember leading a protest on student accommodation. I thought you only had to organise the protest for the media to come along. I did not realise you had to send out a press release in advance to alert the media to what you were doing.

The protection of that right is especially important. The fact is university campuses sometimes encompass hospitals which are sometimes part of their setting. The provision of bona fide healthcare goes on side by side with the training of doctors and so on. It is possible to imagine a situation whereby, in a campus, a student debate for and against the right to abortion, or the supposed right to abortion, could well be taking place within 100 m of a facility where abortions are being provided. The question is whether students in that context could be prohibited from having such a debate?

I do not know whether this occurred to the Minister or to the Department but it was certainly drawn to his and to the Department's attention that this right to the free expression of ideas, so important at third level, could well be compromised unless there is a saver clause in this legislation. The Minister has not to date indicated a desire to consider that problem and to make provision for it. Notwithstanding the caution in the wording in my amendment, which I stress is modest and suggests that to be protected such "debate, protest advocacy or dissent [must] not be directed at a specific relevant healthcare premises or persons accessing a relevant healthcare premises", the Minister has not seen fit to indicate he will accept it, because were the Minister to accept there is a need to carve out a particular freedom here for debate, lawful protest, advocacy or dissent in a university, it would be not to accept the almost absolute principle that you are entitled to crush dissent when it comes to abortion.Our newest colleague, Senator O'Hara, mentioned a few minutes ago that he thought people were somehow out to filibuster today's legislation. Whenever I hear somebody suggesting that somebody else is trying to filibuster, I think they must be going to guillotine the legislation, and that is what is happening here, despite the fact that we have pointed out numerous times in this House that the use of the guillotine is bad practice and undemocratic in instinct and approach. I can assure the Minister and everybody else that I am here to make my point today, not to speak at any more length than is necessary. On a life and death issue it is important to make the point, however. I was quite reconciled to this debate ending and, with no indication coming that the Minister was going to accept amendments, expected that this debate would end today in the normal way or perhaps go on to a future date. It is no fun for anybody to be presenting carefully reasoned amendments when the Government of the day simply is not interested in dialogue or listening in any way. Legislation that is out to prevent peaceful protest against the ending of innocent lives is itself to be guillotined here today. The Minister wants to talk about dark ironies - there is the dark irony. The guillotine is already falling, 10,000 times a year in our country, thanks to politicians like you, I am sorry to say. Now the debate on this legislation, in which amendments would seek to protect peaceful and respectful dissent, is itself to be guillotined. There is the dark irony.