Mulroy paid particular tribute to Bonar’s pivotal role in the campaign that led to the introduction of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution in 1983.

To prevent further damage to the integrity of the process, the bill’s sponsors should do the honourable thing and shelve it.

The Campaign also highlighted HSE figures showing that more than 10,000 women attended an initial abortion appointment over five years but did not return after the waiting period.

“I’m not sure that I would have again voted for that law with the extension that we have seen in the recent years.”

However, the Government’s response to the issue has so far been truly awful. The fear of upsetting the pro-abortion side even slightly seems to be at the heart of this pervasive denialism. How else can we explain the outright refusal to engage with or take action on the issue?

The personalised attacks were among the nastiest and most insidious directed at witnesses before an Oireachtas committee in recent memory.

But when women’s testimony doesn’t chime with his own ideological stance, he appears far less interested in what they have to say.

Women with firsthand experience of three-day wait speak out at Dublin event

Take a few minutes to read Breda O’Brien’s marvellous keynote address from last weekend’s pro-life dinner in Dublin.