That is a hard act to follow. I commend Senator O'Reilly on every word she said. I also commend Senator Gallagher on his words earlier. I ask today for a debate on Ireland's spiralling abortion figures. The Sinn Féin Bill proposing to abolish the three-day waiting period is wrong in every respect. It will deny the very women who might need it the required guaranteed space to think and reflect about the irrevocable step that is abortion. Many women have benefited from that space and have kept their babies after the first appointment. This measure would also give comfort and assistance to those who would hustle women towards abortion, as we know sometimes happens. I am sorry to say that the leadership of the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Minister for Health on this issue is truly lamentable. I do not know why Micheál Martin, Jennifer Carroll MacNeill and Simon Harris find it so difficult to empathise with the cause of a little human being at the earliest stage of his or her development in the womb. Perhaps it is because the child in the first trimester is so physically small. We know that in the first trimester the embryo develops into a foetus, which itself is Latin for the words "little one", with a functioning heartbeat, brain activity and distinct limbs. In the words of Spike Milligan: "Small, but I WAS!". These same politicians will wring their hands at spiralling violence in our society and rightly lament the destruction going on in Gaza and the Middle East. However, by their indifference to our spiralling abortion rates, and their refusal to ever consider the need to encourage a culture of life, they give momentum to the rising culture of violence in our society where the strongest exert power over the weak.

We all urgently need to rethink this issue together, to acknowledge that every abortion is a tragedy, and to at least commit together to working to reduce the number of abortions. I am reminded of a phrase in a song by Paul Simon "Why deny the obvious child?". Why is there such denial in our Oireachtas about the obvious child?

Hear, hear.