Health Minister Simon Harris has launched a blistering attack on anti-abortion protesters outside the National Maternity Hospital, saying their actions were “intimidating, sickening and anti-democratic.”

Fifty-odd years ago two lifelines were thrown to rural Ireland by a Fianna Fáil majority government. In July 1961, Ireland applied for membership of the EEC. Just five years later, in September 1966, the minister for education announced his free education scheme. We then joined the EEC in 1973.

I am 21 years old, this is my first time to vote in an election.