Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
BRITISH MPs HAVE formally approved moves to allow the UK Government to directly commission abortion services in Northern Ireland.
The House of Commons voted 215 to 70, majority 145, in favour of the Abortion (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2022.
Abortion legislation in Northern Ireland was liberalised in 2019 following laws passed by Westminster at a time when the powersharing government at Stormont had collapsed.
But while individual health trusts in Northern Ireland currently offer services on an ad-hoc basis, the Department of Health has yet to centrally commission the services due to a political impasse at Stormont on the issue.
The DUP, which is opposed to abortion, had refused to agree to the issue being tabled on the agenda of the ministerial executive.
The UK Government laid regulations at Parliament last month that removed the need for the Department of Health to seek the approval of the wider executive to commission the services.
They have now been approved by MPs and peers.
Debate over the legislation grew heated yesterday, with members of the House of Lords accusing the intervention in Northern Ireland of being “constitutional sabotage”.
Lady Nuala O’Loan, opposing Lewis’s ability to implement abortion services, said: “The regulations give broad, sweeping powers to the Secretary of State effectively to act as a Northern Ireland minister without having been appointed as a minister… and without any accountability to the people of Northern Ireland.”
Branding the situation as “shameful”, former Labour MP Baroness Kate Hoey said: “When it suits the Government, they want devolution and they believe in devolution.”
“When it does not suit them, they take away devolution, and that is what this is about today. Forget the issue of abortion – this is about the constitutional sabotage of devolution and the 1998 Act.”
In defense of the measure, Conservative party peer Lord Jonathan Caine said it was “unacceptable” there are women and girls unable to access abortion services in Northern Ireland and said some critics used constitutional arguments about devolution as “a screen” for their blanket opposition to terminations.
Lord Caine added: “The Government and the Secretary of State remain under a statutory duty to provide access to abortion services”.
Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis last week suggested a telemedicine abortion option is set to be introduced in Northern Ireland when services are fully rolled out.
The treatment option allows women to take a medical abortion pill following a virtual consultation with a clinical professional.
Additional reporting from Jamie Mc Carron
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Michael Healy Rae is far cuter than people (around Dublin) give him credit. He knew the media would lap up his ‘send in the army’ jibe, now something might actually be done about it – news articles on other invasive plant species!
All while the Healy Raes own a local Plant Hire company!
Barra, only man power – saws and weed killer – will get rid of the rhododendron. Plant hire won’t be hired – so Healy Rae won’t earn from that one (he does from much else mind you – like getting hedge cutting season extended by 3 months!!).
Bloody hell John! Can’t have prisoners do it, they’ll have no time to sit on their arses, watch the footie and play on their Xbox’s, come on man have some sense!!
Send in Enda and his crew they destroy everything in sight. Complete devastation!!!!!!
@Steven Hillert:
The article above this one is about contraceptives.
See can you get a party political broadcast into that as well.
Rosebay Willowherb is a very useful plant for bees, is it classified as an invasive species? Surprised to see Sycamore on the list as invasive. What is not mentioned is Ragwort, Senecio jacobaea, which is proven to be harmful to livestock and I dont think that there has ever been a prosecution for lack of control under the Noxious Weeds Order, 1937.
@Dara Kilmartin:
And there never will be a prosecution on the noxious weeds act, because the prosecuting authority, the county councils, are the worst offenders, the sides of country roads.
Their not going to create a rod to beat themselves with.
@Dara Kilmartin Invasive species are non-native. Both Sycamore and the Rosebay Willowherb were introduced to Ireland. The Ragwort is native.
Gunnera tinctoria is currently considered invasive on the west coast of Ireland, It is considered to be having a significant impact on Achill Island, where is has spread throughout.
Would be useful if they had pics rather than Latin names…
Be the Holy man tonight, let’s not hope the Asian Hornet comes to destroy our native bee population
@Mercurial One: There were hornets in the South of England last year I believe… But the U.K. has the Arthurdendyus triangulatus already and they are dangerous…
http://invasivespeciesireland.com/most-unwanted-species/established/terrestrial/?pg=2
@Alois Irlmaier: Another invasive pest is the Ragondin. Only answer to this nuisance is the pit bull terrier.
Ragondin ? In French? What’s wrong with Coypu?
@Mercurial One: Not here? But the EU wanted to reintroduce the Wolf and the lynx back to Scotland and the farmers were not happy at all.
Build a wall and send them back whence they came
The potato is an invasive species, imported from South America.
Nearly wiped us out.
Here’s an app that one can use to highlight Japanese Knotweed to alert it’s presence to the council and thus help stop the spread (by hedge-cutting or soil removal). http://waterfordcouncil.maps.arcgis.com/apps/CrowdsourceReporter/index.html?appid=9c41e4c2f33e4f1eb2d8ab2c1740ea30
Ecologist Ryan” rosebay willowherb is a native wildflower and one of the most beautiful. Glyphosphate on the other hand has long term implications for soil and habitat.
I see in this article no mention of ‘Winter Heliotrope’ (Petasites fragrans). I am an amateur botanist living in Leinster, and as far as I can see ‘Winter Heliotrope’ is by far the biggest threat to the native flora (in the East of Ireland anyway). In the last 10-20 years it has spread enormously, colonizing roadsides, grasslands, woodlands, riversides etc. In the areas it colonizes, it smothers out the other plants, out-competing them below and above ground, and then once established, being a perennial, it is basically there for good, preventing anything else more or less from growing in that area. Inch by inch, yard by yard, it is gobbling up the Irish countryside botanically.
There must be a national effort to control the spread of this invasive, or the consequences for the irish flora will be severe.
Send in the Special Branch, do they still exist?
Japanese knotweeds makes great pies, jams and wine but it will destroy the place it is in…
http://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/outdoors/dick-warner/new-species-of-animals-and-plants-probably-wont-destroy-our-ecosystem-304261.html
“The zebra mussel did not clog up all the inlets to our power stations and water purification plants.
The American mink did not exterminate all our water-hens and pheasants…. another name for them is Chinese barking deer…
http://www.thejournal.ie/in-pictures-irelands-most-unwanted-list-of-invasive-species-347768-Feb2012/
A foreign species is taking over from the native species all without one drop of blood being spilled, this is accurately described as invasion. And yet the foreign clams do not directly attack or eat the native ‘clans’, nonetheless, the results of this invasion are the same for how we normally envision an invasion involving bloodletting. It shows there are different types of invasion, all however have the same end-result, the native species loses out and may become extinct.
To illustrate how a stealth invasion is no different in outcome to an overt invasion is this quote from an article in the Journal.ie relating to an invasive clam species:
“It can reproduce and spread, and out-compete native species “, “the Asian Clam an “aggressive alien invasive species”
We know this happens to other native species – the Red Squirrel being out-competed by grey squirrels, and the above native flora being overtaken by Rhododendron. Again not a drop of blood is spilled, no overt immediate perception of a physical struggle, but a long term stealth attack resulting in the very real physical acquisition and domination of territory and resources of that territory by one species over the native species. With the inevitable end-result of the replacement of the native species by the invader species.
With what other native species does this type of long-term stealth take-over take place?
have your say