Nicole Ryan (Sinn Fein)

I thank everyone who contributed and who has been supportive of this from the get-go. I appreciate it. There is a lot of work to do and I am sure we can do a lot of work together.

The Minister referred to one in five women and a gestation of 24 weeks. That does not give me a whole pile of hope because it is one in four and the relevant period of gestation has changed to 23 weeks. He also referred to a strategy, but a strategy is only as good as the paper it is printed on if it is not enacted.What the Government is saying to women throughout Ireland right now is that it does not care enough. It really does not care enough. It is just going to throw it down the road and let it die. The Government might come in with something itself. There is no sense of urgency. Women in the Gallery, women I have met and talked to and hundreds of women and their partners who are watching these proceedings have that sinking feeling because they know this cannot progress now. I was not asking for the world. We were not asking for the world. Legislation takes considerable time. There was nothing stopping anybody from letting this move to Committee Stage, where we could have hashed it out. It is a massive trend that every single Bill we in the Opposition bring forward is pushed back. At the very beginning of this term we all stood up and said we wanted to work collaboratively. Where is the collaboration? It is not happening here. In the Minister’s closing statement he mentioned he has been engaging with the Oireachtas cross-party pregnancy group. Which group is that? Could I get a point of clarity on that? Is that possible? Is it already an established group within the Oireachtas?