Today I want to speak on two issues. The first concerns the recent development in the UK regarding the law passed by the House of Lords that effectively decriminalises abortion up to birth. Since this concerns the country that has jurisdiction over Northern Ireland, I feel compelled to speak out. We should first be concerned as to whether we are being exposed to a serious risk of opening a back door to unregulated late-term abortions, mainly via pills in the post, through the jurisdiction of Northern Ireland. While I understand the North is devolved from Westminster in these matters, this is a risk that we in these Houses must seriously analyse. More importantly, I would like to condemn this as a dangerous development. Polling has shown that very few people in the UK or in any country for that matter believe that late-term abortions are acceptable, regardless of whether you are pro-life or pro-choice, yet legislation that de facto allows it was pushed through in an incredibly undemocratic way.

Second, I want to comment on the recent outrage over the improvised Epstein files floats in Galway and Mayo. I will not comment on the inappropriateness or otherwise of the display, but instead I point out that if you search online for the Epstein files and Ireland, you can see dozens of articles in just the last 24 hours condemning the float and very few investigating what the files say about Ireland. I really have to ask those expressing outrage today where this outrage was when the emails revealed that one woman claimed she had been trafficked into Ireland at 13. Where was the outrage when our Government declined to investigate these claims and the other possible Epstein links to Ireland? Once again, we seem to be directing more energy into outrage over appearance and pageantry than outrage over real concerns.