Last Friday evening, the Department of Health published its report on the number of abortion notifications received for 2024. The figure, totalling 10,852, is the highest yet on record. It represents a 63% increase in the abortion rate in 2024 by contrast with 2019, when 6,666 abortion notifications were received. To put it more starkly, newly released data means that at least one in six pregnancies were aborted, excluding miscarriages. This is a harrowing statistic and something we should all reflect on. It underlines the need for serious action by the Government to address the abortion rate, which continues to soar to horrifying new heights annually. More supports are needed for women in unplanned pregnancies to ensure no woman feels like she has no choice but to have an abortion. We also need to ensure that a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy and considering her options is truly given her options, including information about social welfare entitlements, parent support and adoption. I draw attention to the fact that the Department of Health issued a publication on its website late on Friday evening with no known associated press release. This meant that the news of the sky-high abortion figures did not receive much media attention and swiftly fell out of the news cycle. I am doubtful that this was just a coincidence. Under the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018, the Minister is required to issue a report of the previous year's abortion notifications, which is to be prepared by 30 June. It felt like the Government was just publishing this important data due to the statutory obligations but hoped it would receive as little public attention and scrutiny as possible. The revelation of 10,852 abortions last year has not received the proper attention it deserves. This should generate a national debate about our current abortion policy and raises questions about how the Government can try to reduce the spiralling abortion rate.

I echo the sentiments of many Members today in wishing everybody the best of luck over the recess. There is lots of work to be done elsewhere, but thank you to all the staff here in the Seanad, the ushers and everybody who has looked after us so well, particularly us newbies just getting used to everything.

There is a group of workers here in Leinster House who face into a lot of uncertainty over the recess. The broadcast workers for Oireachtas TV face going onto social welfare while we are going into recess. Everything is very unstable and uncertain for them. Not only that, but the pay they receive is far below industry rates, even though the likes of RTÉ, Virgin Media, TG4 and others use their footage. It is broadcast quality. Speaking as a former broadcaster, it is the best of work that is being done by those broadcast workers. The contract with the provider of Oireachtas TV is up this year, and it is high time the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission looked at the contract because these workers are doing amazing work. None of us would have social media clips either without the work being done in these Houses by Oireachtas TV staff. I just want that marked as we enter recess and as our colleagues in the broadcast unit look at going on social welfare for the recess. It is time we supported them. As the contract is up for renewal, now is the time to do as much as we can to get them onto industry standards and the rights they deserve.

I spoke yesterday about my concern about the religious orders' interactions with the State and the need for them to be very careful about being bullied by the State in the context of future redress arrangements concerning not abuse in schools, which is a very separate thing, but what happened in mother and baby homes. I do not suggest that there is not a case in some cases for redress but I am very troubled. I read this morning an excellent article by John McGuirk on Gript about the Tuam babies and the whole cultural narrative being presented around that. I have heard of no credible suggestion or evidence of foul play and heard of no finding by any commission about deliberate neglect. I have heard a whole lot of doubt about how and when a structure that may have had a connection with a sewerage system at some point in the past came to be used as a repository for some children's bones. I suspect I am one of many silent dissenters from the idea that the State should be digging up and examining the bones of long-deceased infants who were unfortunate enough in life to begin with and concerning whom no credible claims of foul play or deliberate neglect have been made, to my knowledge. I have secular friends who dismiss the exercise as a waste of money. It would not be a waste of money if there were a real and honest purpose, but how realistic is it to expect that this long forensic exercise will unearth any significant fact that will lead to justice for any person, living or dead? Some see it as the State giving into performative politics or maybe catering to the asks of people who have been hurt in life in some way connected with the homes, and I understand that. I also wonder about the role of public commentators who are anti-Catholic and who want to ferment public rejection of Irish Catholic heritage and culture. Is that in play here?

I am interested in the truth, but the truth is complex and textured. Every time I hear RTÉ talk about a disused sewage tank, I know what that is contributing to in people's minds, and it has very little to do with a broad understanding of historical reality. It is for that reason that I ask that we have a respectful debate in the autumn. I know it is irrevocable at this stage that this forensic exercise is going on, and I hope it leads to facts that will bring justice to some person living or dead, but I really doubt it. We should have a discussion about the Tuam babies, the narrative around it, the role of the State, the way the State is acting on this, the type of motivations it appears to have and the way it publicly expresses its policy around this because I am not sure that justice is being done in the present in connection with the realities of the past.

I echo Senator Ní Chuilinn’s thoughts and wishes for the support we have received from everyone in the Seanad since we began. We are total newbies. Lots of us are brand new politicians and greatly appreciate the support. I echo what Senator Ní Chuilinn said about the workers in the background because we all use our social media clips and little videos so I support the workers in all of their endeavours.

I have spoken on this previously, but I wanted to finish off the year by speaking about it again because it is so important and I will bring it back up in the autumn. The analysis from the Irish Dental Association shows we need an extra 500 dentists across the private and public sectors immediately. We are down 642 dentists who are on a DTSS contract nationally during the past 12 years. Focusing on County Meath, in quarter 4 of 2017, some 7,711 children were seen but in quarter 4 of 2023, 2,378 children were seen. It has not been good and children have not been able to be seen. In the public dental service the lack of dentists has led to a situation where fewer than half of the children who should be seen under the school dental programme have been seen and there are children in parts of the country who are facing a ten-year backlog.

The previous time I spoke about this I mentioned my own children. They have a condition that is growing in Ireland called molar incisor hypomineralisation. It means the enamel is not growing on their teeth. Only that I was lucky enough to be able to bring them to a private dentist, it would not have been a good story. They have had a lot of procedures and one operation. Many children have this condition and if children do not see public dentists in schools until they are in sixth class we will be in a lot of trouble in regard to children's teeth in the future.

I am delighted we have opened another 20 student places in Dublin but with only 90 people graduating every year and 45 of them returning to various countries, while we are adding 20 places we need to add a lot more to that. We need more investment in our colleges. We need specific training in other aspects of dentistry. I thank the Minister for Health, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, for the work she is putting in but I ask for more to be done so more dentists can be qualified in future, particularly for County Meath.