LABOUR TD KENNY SAYS ABC REPORT MUST BE DEALT WITH AS A MATTER OF URGENCY

Posted on November 19, 2012 5:02 PM   |   Permanent Link   

Dublin Bay North Labour TD and member of the Oireachtas Justice Committee, has echoed calls for the Government to consider the report of the Expert Group on the X case as a matter of urgency.

"The tragic case of Savita Halappanavar demonstrates why Labour has been right in consistently arguing that Irish society should tackle the difficult issue of abortion in a mature manner.

"While we don't yet know the full circumstances of Savita's utterly tragic death, it underlines in the strongest possible way that the Government needs to act as soon as possible. Any delay in bringing this report to Cabinet beyond tomorrow week would be an insult to the life of the woman who died tragically at the end of last month, and an insult to the many thousands of ordinary people who marched on streets around the country this past weekend. We as a society have been putting this off for 20 years and it is now high time for us as legislators to deal with it.

"A constituent has written to me and what she has said to me very much sums the situation up for me -
I do not want to feel like a second class citizen in my own country, and I want to feel proud to be Irish and invite people to the likes of the Gathering, instead of feeling ashamed that we are denying basic human rights to women in difficulty. If I end up having daughters I do not want them to grow up in a country where their access to healthcare is second to that of men.

"This is a sensitive issue, but we, as legislators, simply must act and end the situation of two decades without legislation for the X Case judgement. Ireland's inability to deal with this serious issue could lead to the lives of other women being endangered. This is why we have to stop procrastinating and act now.

"I am not calling for a knee jerk reaction, but I am calling for prompt, urgent and comprehensive action to be taken."