Abortion amendments have me concerned about bill

It was interesting to note that around 156 amendments were tabled on the recent legislation in the Dáil.

This amount of amendments would lead one to wonder why this was, as surely the original legislation would have been (should have been) framed with a major input from all our state paid legal eagles, ie Attorney General, Supreme Court, etc.

Perhaps I’m wrong, but I get the feeling that this legislation may have been a ‘rushed’ job and thus all the hubris that we have had to put up with in the papers and on TV over the past months. If this legislation and its numerous amendments was deemed so important why was the Dáil so sparsely populated during the various debates. At one session I counted 11 TDs in the Dáil. Perhaps the rest were in the bar thinking up more amendments!

You reported lately that the German government is erecting a memorial to the hundreds of thousand mentally and physically disabled people murdered by the Nazis under the guise of their euthanasia programme. I believe that the Nazis had legislation for that also, duly passed in their Dáil at the time. The basis of this programme was fundamentally cost. These people were considered a drain on the resources of the state. A state preparing for war. Are we as a nation heading in the same direction?

Our Government has cut or abolished quite a number of ‘costs’ to the disabled sections of our state over the past few years and no doubt there are more ‘cost’ cutting to come as the war continues to correct the fiscal base of the country. Perhaps the next great debate will centre on a Euthanasia Bill and it’s 2,156 amendments.

Denis Moloney

Macroom

Co Cork