Protection of life during pregnancy Bill
Senators Bacik and Norris discuss the newly published Bill, with Bacik welcoming legislative clarity and Norris giving a guarded welcome while criticising its omissions; the Chair asks for a question.
I also welcome last night's publication of the heads of the protection of life during pregnancy Bill. I am really glad this Government is finally, 21 years after the X case, facing up to the responsibility we all have as legislators to introduce legislation which will provide for clarity in our law for pregnant women, their doctors and families as to when doctors may intervene to save women's lives by terminating pregnancies in the very rare cases when that arises. I entirely agree with Senator Darragh O'Brien that we should have ample time to debate it in this House when it comes before us on Second, Committee and Report Stages. I know the Leader will facilitate that request.
Senator Darragh O'Brien is correct that the health committee is the appropriate place to have the debate on the heads of the Bill. I understand the health committee is meeting tomorrow morning at 9.30 a.m. to commence that debate. We will see a very full debate. I entirely agree that it should be respectful and courteous but we also need to see this legislation go through the normal stages in the Dáil and Seanad and be brought into law without any further unnecessary delays. So while we need a full debate, I very much hope we will see it come into law before the summer recess. That is very important for the women of Ireland and I am really glad we are finally legislating on this important issue.
I welcome yesterday's announcement, while the Order of Business was in session - other colleagues mentioned it - by Glanbia of the creation of 1,600 jobs in the south east. That is a really important announcement. This morning we see again an announcement of the creation of 100 high-level jobs in Squarespace which will set up headquarters in Dublin. This is a company in the ICT sector where we have seen 11,000 additional jobs in the last two years. The Government has rightly targeted this sector for growth and we are seeing real momentum here in job creation, which is really important.
My final matter is a little further away from here but again of concern. Colleagues will have seen recent reports about the hunger strike in the detention camp in Guantanamo Bay. It is very welcome to see President Obama renewing calls for the closure of Guantanamo Bay. Many of us were very disappointed that the centre was not closed during President Obama's first term of office. It is a blatant breach of the rights to due process of suspects - they are no more than suspects - held there in detention. Many of them have been held for many years and are protesting at their conditions and continued detention. We should raise concerns about it in this House because it is a matter of great international concern.
Comment on this
I give a guarded welcome to the Bill dealing with abortion because it is very little, very late and does not address significant issues such as rape, incest and fatal foetal abnormality. If I were a woman I would not be reassured by being told the legislators are apparently not concerned with the health of a woman. They should be. It is not enough simply to state that there should be a respectful and courteous debate here, and then for people to go on and impugn other professional people. I have never said that the leader of Fianna Fáil did that, never, but other Members of this House have. I have heard them speaking about "bogus medicine", accusing a distinguished psychiatrist of a corruption of medicine. I do not consider that respectful.
I do not consider it respectful when some young woman is incited to go into a politician's clinic, lie about her position, lead people into stating what their views are, record it on a telephone and leak it to a newspaper. Then they complain about duplicity. That woman was a liar, very dishonest, and I would like to know her name. She was broadcasting everybody else's name but wanted her privacy. That is not appropriate behaviour from these people who call themselves "pro-life". Let us have a really open, honest, truthful debate with courtesy but it is not enough to say we are being courteous and then be completely discourteous, dishonest and libellous about people. I am glad that the Minister for Health, Deputy Reilly, said this would have to be revisited, as it should be. I agree with what those Labour Party Deputies said. They were perfectly right, as anybody who has a feeling for the humanity of women would want to agree with.
I am delighted that the pensioners of Waterford Crystal got their pensions. This is what they were entitled to and I am glad the European Court of Justice ruled on this but sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. We are facing a massive pension problem in this country because our pensions were raided. Some €17.5 billion was taken out of them at the behest of the ECB and the troika. If our pension system collapses as a result of that, because we have nothing left in the kitty to pay the pensions, I assume the European Court of Justice will say it is over to the European authority to pay our pensions, and so it should because what is true in the microcosm should also be true in the macrocosm.
I am sure all Members have received the Illicit Tobacco Trade Review. The people who produce it are very coy indeed. They are "JTI" but they never spell out what that stands for. People should know that JTI is Japan Tobacco International, an Asian branch of one of the largest American tobacco, cancer-inducing companies. They have all this flummery here-----