I wonder if the Taoiseach listened to an interview on Monday on RedFM, a Cork radio station, with a woman called Sarah. In short, Sarah is a victim of rape who was refused morning-after contraception and ended up having to go to Britain for a late abortion at great expense and trauma. In the context of a debate about unrestricted access to abortion up to 12 weeks versus restrictions, I think the interview should be required listening for everybody in the Cabinet and all other Members of the Dáil. It gets to the heart of the experience of many women in this country regarding contraception and abortion.

Sarah's experience is particularly harrowing. She was violated by a so-called friend, dismissed by a garda when she went to report the matter and disbelieved by a pharmacist. Her experience of the search for emergency contraception is mirrored by multiple accounts from women over many years. This has been raised in parliamentary questions for years, including by me in 2015, in the context of how medically unnecessary it is and also how it acts as a barrier to access. Now we have seen the consequences of this. Sarah said she was asked a series of invasive questions by a pharmacist, who said she did not believe her and did not give her access to the medication.

Some, including the Tánaiste and other Deputies, are proposing to give the same powers to doctors by introducing a rape ground within abortion legislation. The joint committee proved that this will not and cannot work for precisely the reasons Sarah experienced. Would the Taoiseach agree that it is ignorant and irresponsible of the Tánaiste and others like him to ignore that committee's research and to try to pretend that what they are proposing, which just ignores reality, can work?

This case to which I refer concerns a woman in the Tánaiste's native city. Sarah's testimony on the radio was very brave. There are a few things people should listen to before we legislate down the road on this issue. Sarah said, "I am against forced pregnancy." She said she was a living, breathing human being playing a role in society while the foetus was a potential human being. In other words, the rights of the person who is pregnant should trump other rights. She said we need to respect women to make these decisions, not to judge about good and bad abortions.

Would the Taoiseach agree that this interview underlines that access must be based on the person who is affected making the decision, not an arbitrator, the doctor, the State or whoever else? If we do not legislate for abortion up to 12 weeks on request, the abortion trail will continue and women like Sarah will continue to be counselled by taxi drivers in London, telling them to lie down in the back of the taxi. Do we want that to continue to be the case?

Is the Taoiseach going to lift the requirement for a consultation for emergency contraception and make it available over the counter, thereby ensuring that women will not have to endure the type of questioning to which I refer? Is the whole Government going to listen to the lessons of Sarah's story and unite behind the committee's recommendations for unrestricted access?

I did not have an opportunity to hear that interview but I will make a point of doing so once I have time. I certainly pay tribute to and have a lot of respect for people who are willing to share their personal stories of adversity when it comes to sexual violence and crisis pregnancies. In respect of whether any medicine is available over the counter, that is not a decision for the Government, nor should it be. That decision is made by a body called the Health Products Regulatory Authority, HPRA. It decides whether a medicine should be available over the counter on patient safety grounds. There are some medicines which, if used inappropriately or if taken by a patient who has other illnesses or perhaps allergies, can cause enormous harm. If something is not available over the counter and a prescription-only medicine, it is thus for good scientific and medical reasons. I would not like it to be the case that politicians or people in this House were to take that power away from medical experts and into their own hands under any circumstances. We will not be doing that.

As I said in recent days, the all-party Oireachtas committee did not pluck its proposals out of thin air. It considered the evidence very carefully and reached conclusions. Those conclusions, certainly to me and, I think, most Members, make a lot of sense. We risk re-victimising women if in some way we ask them to prove to their doctors or whoever else that they were victims of sexual violence. I certainly would not like that to be our law.

It is, however, important to recognise that Article 43.3.3° - the eighth amendment - is a feature of our Constitution and it will not be possible for this House to legislate for lawful termination of pregnancies in any circumstance if it remains in place. There is a two-step process here.

The first step involves the referendum passing, which would untie the hands of this Oireachtas to change the law, and the second step is for this Oireachtas to change the law, as it should, based on the evidence and based on public opinion.

Fundamentally, this means not trusting politicians but rather trusting women and their doctors. We should trust women in the first 12 weeks of their pregnancy to decide what is best for them and whether or not they want to continue that pregnancy beyond 12 weeks, and trusting doctors to allow it on medical grounds.

I welcome the fact that the Taoiseach said he will listen to the interview, but he might bring the Tánaiste to sit and listen to it with him.

The first issue is that Sarah was not asked if she had allergies. She was asked about her sex life. That is the reality of it. The morning after pill is safer than paracetamol or Nurofen. One can go to the counter and get it without any questioning. Someone can give advice as to its safety, but this is different, because women are actually being interrogated. Can the Taoiseach imagine this happening in a small town or village? This incident occurred in a major retail chain.

The process in question adds to the cost, because once a woman has a consultation, the price of the medication goes up. This is another barrier to access for poorer or vulnerable younger women. In Boots in Cork city centre, it costs €60, while on the Lower Kilmacud Road in Stillorgan it costs €15.50. These are the variations. Women are actually looking up maps on the Internet to see where they can get the morning after pill. That is a ludicrous situation in this day and age.

On the substantive issue of abortion, it will be up to the public to decide to repeal the eighth amendment but only this Dáil can legislate for abortion. I hope it listens to the public and what it is saying, because the public are ahead of the politicians.

If she has not done so already, Sarah should make a complaint to the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland, the professional body which regulates pharmacists. If there was any inappropriate or invasive questioning, it will be able to take that issue further. However, it is relatively standard practice that when somebody requests emergency contraception, a practitioner would try to give advice on contraception more broadly. For example, it may be the correct choice for an individual at a particular point in time but it may also be advisable that she goes on more regular contraception. Sometimes pharmacists and doctors will offer people advice in that area. Certainly that should not happen in an invasive way or take the form of an interrogation. It should always be respectful, seeking information only. If the woman the Deputy mentioned feels that she was treated badly by a pharmacist or by a doctor, I would encourage her to make a complaint.