Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services) (Safe Access Zones) Bill 2023: Report and Final Stages
Dail Éireann — 2023-11-15
============================================================

Ivana Bacik (LAB), Dublin Bay South

We all want to see an effective review process built into the Bill and all of the amendments, including that of the Minister, are aimed at this purpose. I appreciate that the Minister's amendment provides terms similar to the 2018 Act. As others have done, I commend Marie O'Shea and the review process of the operation of the 2018 Act. It was commendable.
The safe access zone Bill is very different. It contains a much more confined set of provisions. It is much shorter and it deals with a discrete issue. I note the point that the Minister has chosen 18 months rather than the three years in the 2018 Act. Three years was a much more appropriate time period for an Act that had so many more provisions and set in place an entire new system of very important healthcare. This is very much a facilitative Bill that is looking to provide for safe access rules. It is a much smaller and more confined policy issue.
Deputy Shortall's point on the need for a specific review into the effectiveness of the system of recording warnings is a good one. All of us also agreed that the broader review of the operation of the legislation is necessary. We will not oppose the Minister's amendment because it is far more preferable to have a review, even if it is not as time limited as we would like. The idea of having it after 12 months is preferable.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2023-11-15/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:52:24+00:00
Sitting date: 2023-11-15