‘Fundamental questions’ over preventing anti-abortion protesters from moving between clinics

“Fundamental questions” have been raised over how anti-abortion protesters who have been warned by gardaí to leave a safe access zones at one clinic can be prevented from demonstrating at another one elsewhere.

Senior representatives of An Garda Síochána raised a number of concerns about the draft legislation aimed at bringing in the zones around hospitals and GP surgeries offering abortions during a meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on Health.

They included the issue of warnings to protesters to leave a zone, and how these cautions could be applied at different locations, as well as difficulties defining the 100 metre zones themselves.

TDs and Senators were also told that Gardaí intend to use body cameras to assist them in recording infringements of the planned zones.

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The committee is currently conducting prelegislative scrutiny of the the Health (Termination of Pregnancy Services [Safe Access Zones]) Bill 2022.

Garda Deputy Commissioner Anne Marie McMahon told TDs and Senators of concerns about “the practicalities of warning given for a specific zone and this warning remaining in place for a zone in another part of the country”.

“A fresh express warning in respect of each Safe Access Zone would be more effective from a policing perspective,” she said.

There are all sorts of complexities around the practical application of this, and that’s where the tensions will arise

Sinn Féin TD David Cullinane asked if it is possible to keep a record of the warnings.

He suggested that, in the absence of record-keeping, “people could just move on from one healthcare facility to the other, getting warnings in each one, and there’s nothing really that the guards can do about it.”

Social Democrats co-leader Róisín Shortall asked if the warnings could be recorded on the Garda Pulse computer system.

Ms McMahon said this could be done only in an accompanying narrative, that there is no drop-down menu for warnings, and that “this would be something new for us”.

She said Pulse was used to record offences, and made an analogy with the existing Public Order Act where the offence is what happens when somebody doesn’t comply with a warning.

Ms Shortall laid out a scenario where a person was warned by gardaí over a protest in Cork and later protested at an abortion facility in Dublin. She asked if a Garda in the capital would be aware the person had previously been warned in Cork.

Ms McMahon said they may not be aware.

Garda legal director Kate Mulkerrins said the issue is a “challenge” and that Pulse is not a vehicle for recording intelligence.

She said: “I think it is a fundamental question. We think it requires advice.”

Superintendent Michael McNamara said he had raised the issue of warnings with the Department of Health, which is drafting the law, and that they are consulting the Attorney General on the matter.

Ms Shortall said the Garda officials had raised “fundamental questions” about the working of the legislation.

Mr Cullinane asked about Garda concerns about defining the 100-metre parameters of safe access zones.

Ms McMahon said the healthcare locations are not universal in how constructed. She said they have access areas and could be part of a shopping complex.

“There are all sorts of complexities around the practical application of this, and that’s where the tensions will arise,” she said.

Ms McMahon said signage would be “helpful” and later suggested they could be at bigger centres and hospitals so that individuals accessing the services and protesters know where the safe access zone is.

Mr McNamara referred to the use of the word curtilage (or land attached to a building) in the legislation as a “very loose term”, and said that it “adds to the uncertainty”.

He said he understands that this will possibly be removed from the legislation, and that the 100 metres would start from the entrance and exit points of a building.

People Before Profit TD Bríd Smith said the idea that signs are needed at hospitals or GP surgeries is “nonsense”, adding: “We do need to get to the point where citizens understand you are not allowed within 100 metres of a healthcare giver to intimidate women or pregnant people.”