I thank Deputy Cullinane and Sinn Féin for bringing forward the Bill. It addresses one part of the O'Shea report. I am disappointed that there is an element of cherry-picking from the O'Shea report. If we are accepting the bona fides of the report, we should be looking at all the issues it addressed. I express the Labour Party's disappointment with Sinn Féin that it is singling out one issue. It is, however, the one issue on which there seems to be greater political consensus compared with some of the other issues identified in the O'Shea report and in that spirit, I very much welcome the Bill. I stand here a little bit frustrated that it has taken another Private Members' Bill to discuss this issue. As the Minister of State knows, the legislation committed to a three-year review. That took way longer than planned. The O'Shea report has been gathering dust in the Department of Health for three years. The Minister came into the Chamber a month ago to express her own personal position with regard to the part of the O'Shea report relating to the three-day wait. We are not going to be a lot further along after this debate in providing those assurances. It is now in the power of the Government to ensure we have speedy passage of this legislation, whether it is the Sinn Féin Bill or a Bill brought forward by the Government. The reality is that there are women out there looking on who have either recently found themselves in this circumstance or may over the coming months. We have had hours of debate in this House but very little progress. Even if this Bill does pass this evening, there is now an onus on the Government to expedite the legislation to ensure that we get rid of the three-day wait. Back in 2018, I was extremely proud to be a part of the Dublin Central Together for Yes campaign. In fact, I will look back on it as one of the most unique and special campaigns I have ever been involved in, given the cross-party support at the time, and night after night, the message from the doorsteps to us was that we could not continue to export our problem, an Irish problem. When two-thirds of voters cast their votes in support of repealing the eighth amendment back in 2018, I passionately believe they were not voting for 1,500 women to still have to go abroad to access a termination in the following years. In 2023, just one year, 240 women had to travel to England - and that is just England - to access a termination of pregnancy because they could not access it here because they timed out of the 12 weeks or because of the rules on fatal foetal abnormalities. The three-day wait plays an important part in delaying and blocking women's access to that necessary healthcare. There is absolutely zero clinical indication for the three-day wait period and it has to go. It is frankly demeaning and degrading to send a woman away who comes to request an abortion. I was struck by what Deputy Gibney said about her pregnancy more than 20 years ago. When women turn up to the doctor they know what they want. It is not a question of them having to be sent away to reflect. When women take the decision to approach a doctor to ask for a termination, they have already thought long and hard about it. It is frankly moralistic and paternalistic and a political fix, which was not proposed by the citizens' assembly or the special Oireachtas committee on abortion care. It was simply a political fix that was put in place to try to make the legislation more palatable, as opposed to it being the right thing to do. There are women out there who, for a whole variety of reasons, fall outside the 12-week mark because of the logistics of the three days, because of trying to access their GP locally, because they are in domestic violence situations or because they have to take time away from work. I was struck by an email I received today from a woman in my constituency who thanked God that she had the luxury of being located close to a medical practitioner who could provide the service and thanked God she had the reality of a flexible working arrangement to be able to access that service. Many women in many parts of the country simply cannot. In particular, if there is a language barrier or a cultural issue with regards to accessing a GP, those issues are exacerbated. I should note a pause was put on language interpretation services in our part of Dublin in recent months, which was frightening for many patients because that service is absolutely necessary for patients to be able to access healthcare in the way the Minister of State or I or any of the rest of us here can when we go to our doctors. Thankfully, it has now been restored, but the reality is they are the challenges and stumbling blocks women face when they go to their doctors. The three-day waiting period must go. It is simply paternalistic. The reality is that we have seen wait periods being removed in many other European countries. They are almost non-existent in most other European countries and Ireland needs to fall into line with that, because, as was said clearly in the O'Shea report and we know from talking to many doctors, there is no clinical indication for this. On the Minister's comments on the legislation, I welcome the exploration of the issues. The cynic in me might say that we have not spent as much time talking about the issue of accessing GP care for the past 12 months as we did in the few minutes during the Minister of State's contribution. The logistical issues of clinical scheduling, patient flow, service demand and capacity are broader issues related to access to GP care. The reality is that in many parts of the country we have significant waiting lists for access to GPs. That is on the Government because of its failure to ensure there is a fair and even distribution of GPs across the country. In my constituency, in Cabra there is one GP to every 3,000 people and in the north inner city there is one GP to every 3,500. In other areas, it is one GP to 1,500 people. There is a huge inequity of access. It is not just for women who are trying to access termination of pregnancy. Many people are affected by the systemic shortage of GPs across the country. I have already said this legislation should be expedited - this legislation or the Government's legislation - after tomorrow night, when I hope it will pass. I implore all TDs on the Government benches to do the right thing, not to pass judgment on women but make sure they afford women the opportunity to do the thing that is best for them, their families and their bodies and not to pass judgment about what is right or wrong. I cannot let the occasion pass without talking about fatal foetal abnormalities, because I passionately believe that has to be part of the conversation. Unfortunately, it is not part of this legislation, but it is hugely important to the Labour Party. There are serious questions about the clinical indication with regard to the 28 days. Neonatologists and obstetricians talk about the extreme difficulty of being able to predict with any great certainty, with regard to fatal foetal abnormalities, whether a baby will pass away within the 28-day limit. The Labour Party believes the 28-day limit has to be reviewed. I listened to a woman named Holly on Cork's 96 FM this morning who spoke eloquently and bravely about the loss of her daughter Hazel. She had been yearning for a baby, but the reality was when she was 14 weeks pregnant, there was a realisation that there was a fatal foetal abnormality. As there could not be certainty about whether it would happen within 28 days, she felt she had to travel. There will be many other families who want to stay the course and give birth to that baby in this country, but others will not. Again, this is about trusting women. If we are to take the key message from the 2018 referendum to repeal the eighth amendment, it is about trusting women and, crucially, trusting doctors. Again, our legislation is not built to trust doctors with how it seeks to criminalise and suppress those making decisions and the rigid definition of fatal foetal abnormalities. This has been a long time coming. We should not be here in 2026, eight years after the referendum and five years after the review should have been completed, still talking about just one part of the updating of our termination of pregnancy legislation. Eliminating the three-day wait needs to be the simple part of the conversation. My appeal to the Minister of State is for the Government to back this proposal tomorrow night - not just have a free vote - and give a firm and clear commitment it will progress the abolition of the three-day wait as speedily as possible, ideally before we rise for the recess, because there will be women who will be affected by our lack of action in the Dáil over the summer and into the winter months.

Sentiment score: 0.12