Dún Laoghaire Fine Gael TD Jennifer Carroll MacNeill has been appointed as the new Minister for Health in the newly formed cabinet headed by Micheál Martin.
On the abortion issue, Deputy Carroll MacNeill has been unambiguous in her support for the ‘pro-choice’ side and supported the Yes vote in 2018. She has further voted in favour of measures like the euthanasia bill proposed by Gino Kenny in 2021 and voted with the government to block foetal pain relief for unborn babies, also in 2021.
She voted with the government against the private members’ bill introduced by People Before Profit to further liberalise the abortion law in May 2023. Several members of the government defected and voted in favour of that Bill at the time, such as all of the Green Party and her Fine Gael colleague Deputy Neal Richmond. Then-Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly voted to ‘abstain’ on the extreme Bill, which even he admitted went far beyond the recommendations of the three-year review. It is notable that Deputy Carroll MacNeill did not take a similar path of deliberately abstaining to make a subtly sympathetic point.
Since 2018, she has occasionally touched on topics related to abortion in her public statements and questions. She asked then-Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, in late June 2021 whether the policy allowing for telemedicine abortion would be reviewed after the Covid-19 restrictions were declared over. He confirmed to her at the time that it would be reviewed. Ultimately telemedicine was officially made permanent in late 2023, despite concerns surrounding physical health and safeguarding.
In an April 2024 interview with TheJournal.ie Deputy Carroll MacNeill was asked about her views on abortion and a contemporaneous debate being held in the Dáil raised by Ivana Bacik in response to the RTÉ Investigates programme on abortion. Deputy Carroll MacNeill said she found the debate “very difficult” to listen to due to her own “difficult experiences” with pregnancies, including miscarriage. She said, “There really is nothing more intimate than a woman in a maternity hospital, at any stage of her pregnancy, with her baby or her unborn baby.”
According to TheJournal.ie, Deputy Carroll MacNeill called “for recommendations contained in a report by barrister Marie O’Shea, who reviewed the operation of the 2018 Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act, to be implemented”, but it did not directly quote her saying this.
When queried specifically on issues like the three-day waiting period, Deputy Carroll MacNeill did not appear to give a firm commitment to repealing it or not. Instead, she discussed the need for a broad conversation about pregnancy and how women are treated. She said “it’s hard to get to a compassionate outcome with a divisive debate. So whatever process or whatever length of time, I know where my endpoint is”, but did not specify what her endpoint was. “I’m not sure that we need to go through too much division to get there. And if it takes a little longer that’s not the worst thing,” she said. Whilst her position is obviously a pro-choice one, her answer implies she is not in a rush to implement the further liberalisation she presumably wants to see.
MacNeill is widely regarded as a “rising star” in Fine Gael and a potential future leader. She will be part of a government reliant on support from several independent TDs who are personally pro-life, including the new ’super junior’ ministers.
To her credit, she is a person of substance. During the 2021 pain relief bill, she engaged with the arguments in a more thoughtful way than others although we would still regard her conclusions as misguided (leading her to oppose the measure).
Hopefully as the newly appointed Minister for Health, she will recognise the need to focus on finding ways to reduce Ireland’s soaring abortion rate rather than giving effect to the extremely flawed recommendations of the three-year review.
The Pro Life Campaign for its part will continue to draw attention to the horrifying effects of the new abortion law and the need for the incoming government to reflect on this reality and work to reduce the number of abortions taking place instead of further expanding access to abortion in Ireland.