Pauline Tully (Sinn Fein)

The Pregnancy Loss (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2025 is vital and well-drafted legislation. I commend my colleague, Senator Ryan, on all her work on the Bill and for sharing her personal story. I also commend other Members who have done so. That is not easy.

I come from a family of ten. I am the second youngest and I was an adult before my mother admitted she had a miscarriage on her fifth pregnancy. She lost twins. She and my father talked about it then. I should have had two more siblings. The impact it had on my mother was such that she did not discuss it after it happened.

I have six sisters and three of them have had miscarriages. To say one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage is a huge underestimation of the numbers affected. I would say it is at least one in four and probably much more, so it affects a huge proportion of the population. As has been said, so many people are just expected to get up and get on with it, go back to work and pretend nothing happened. We talk about the physical effects on the mother but the emotional and psychological effects on both parents are tremendous. People need support and this legislation would go some way to providing that support and understanding.

I have a friend who found out she was pregnant a few months ago. She was delighted but at around 12 weeks, she realised something was wrong. She went to the hospital and it was confirmed she was miscarrying. She was treated with compassion and kindness but she was told she would have to come back in to discuss her options going forward with the consultant. It was a female consultant. When she went back she was treated in a clinical fashion and told, "These are your three options." There was no warning or proper support. She opted to taking two pills at home, two days apart, to end the pregnancy. She was not warned about what would happen. She took the first pill on the Friday evening and almost immediately went into excruciating pain, spending eight hours on the floor, bleeding. She was not even fit to be moved by ambulance. Luckily, her partner was with her.She should have been warned about the possible effects. There should have been some pathway for him to get support. He was ringing the hospital but there was no support there whatsoever and no options. They are still traumatised by the whole effects of what happened. We really need to see legislation that supports people by giving them time off work, time to grieve and support to get over the traumatic loss of a pregnancy. I think if you have not been through it yourself, you sometimes do not realise what is involved.

This Bill is so important. I, too, am utterly dismayed by the Government's amendment to delay this Bill. I do not see a need for that. This Bill is an important piece of legislation that we all support here and it should be allowed to pass.