Carlow is one of the four counties in which not one single GP has signed up to provide the abortion service to people. People in Carlow campaigned tirelessly for abortion and Carlovians voted overwhelmingly for local healthcare. We have ended the need for people having to travel abroad. Carlow cannot continue to export people seeking healthcare to other counties.

We have repealed the 8th amendment, 66.4% have voted to allow care for pregnant people who need abortions. These women and other people who are pregnant deserve to make their decision and access care in privacy and without intimidation. The staff working in GP surgeries and hospitals also deserve to have a workplace free from harassment and disruption, and patients who are attending for unrelated reasons should also be entitled to visit their caregiver without dealing with protestors.

Irish adoptees have no automatic right to access our adoption files, birth certificate, health, heritage or history information. A right to identity is a recognised human right and adoptees are denied this right. This affects Irish Adoptees from historic, domestic adoption, along with their children and extended families.

We live in a culture where sexual assault can be dismissed as a joke, where a woman's choice of underwear can be used as a defence in a rape trial, where women do not feel safe in their own home, their school, workplace or community. Change will come from the ground up - from people speaking out and supporting each other and when our institutions and leaders take action to respond to the demand for change.

“I may be in the library but today TDs will hear my voice. #IRiseForClimate Jobs and Justice with students across Ireland.” We have 12 years to take action on climate change. This Wednesday TDs are gathering to listen to constituents concerns about the government's lack of climate action. Students’ voices need to be heard! Sign your name and we will print out a huge petition to show the TDs how many of us demand action. As students, most of us can’t attend because it’s exam season. We are studying hard for exams so we can get a job that might not exist in a world that will be very different from the one today. There are no jobs on a dead planet. We RISE for Action on Climate Change. We RISE for Jobs on a living planet. We RISE for justice for all.

Dear Department of Justice and the members of the Irish Court System, Women in Ireland are afraid to report sexual assault as they feel they will either be judged or traumatised by going through the system. This current system oppresses women and puts the onus on them to prove they were not, in some way, giving the aggressor the wrong idea. They are questioned on their state of mind, their physical state, how much they had to drink, how they spoke to them, and most of all on what they wore on the night in question. Just this week we heard about a barrister asking for a teenage girl's underwear to be considered as an indicator of her consent. "Does the evidence out-rule the possibility that she was attracted to the defendant and was open to meeting someone and being with someone? You have to look at the way she was dressed. She was wearing a thong with a lace front," This is a blatant attempt to reframe the narrative and hope to shed a bad light on the victim. We must not allow this language to be used in our courts and allow suggestion and assumptions to rule the outcome of a case like this. Women are being re-traumatised by the actions of solicitors in the Irish Courts. Do the right thing and protect the victims of sexual assault by not allowing the clothing they wore on the night of their assault be used against them. We need the Irish courts system to defend the victim, not the aggressor, and show empathy towards them. We need to be able to trust that the justice system in Ireland supports victims and right now they are falling very short of that. This case and that of the Belfast rape trial show just how hard it is for a victim to be shown any respect through the course of a trial. We must hold ourselves to a higher standard and treat victims with dignity and respect. We cannot accept outcomes like this. We must stand up and be counted where it matters. #ThisIsNotConsent

Repealing the 8th Amendment was only half the battle. Without ready access to abortion and other services, REPEAL will mean little. With the new maternity hospital costing the state at least €350 million and set to be built on land owned by the sisters of charity and run by a board appointed by them, this access will be compromised. Despite its name, the National Maternity Hospital is a private Catholic corporation. The hospital recently agreed to be taken over by a private company owned by the Sisters of Charity, St Vincent's Healthcare Group (SVHG), which manages the nuns' three hospitals. The National Maternity Hospital is now slated to get a new facility built by the government on land owned by the nuns. This new build will cost an estimated €350m. Contrary to what the Minister for Health has repeatedly claimed, the State will not own the new hospital. All the government will own are the bricks. Current plans will see the maternity hospital governed by the SVHG, and owned by a new private Catholic company to be set up by SVHG. The Minister claims the new hospital will be free of religious influence. Such claims ring hollow. With private ownership come legal powers and privileges. Private hospitals cannot be forced to provide services that conflict with their ethos. They cannot even be compelled to submit to independent inquiries into patient safety, as a High Court case taken by the same National Maternity Hospital against the Minister shows. The hospital recently won its case, blocking a HIQA inquiry following the death of a 34 year old woman during surgery at the hospital. The inaugural public meeting of the Campaign Against Church Ownership of Women's Healthcare on Saturday 20th October 2018 unanimously adopted the following Declaration, namely that: * the National Maternity Hospital be taken into public ownership as a condition of public funding; * the €350m earmarked for the new build be conditional on the change of ownership; * the new maternity hospital be governed by a new, secular charter fit for the 21st century; We are looking to groups that work on behalf of women and all genders, binary and non binary, that are impacted by issues that may traditionally be considered women's healthcare- organisations, students, trade unions, political parties, and others to endorse this Declaration and demand its immediate implementation. Help make the National Maternity Hospital ours, by joining our campaign. Urgent action is needed now: the Minister hopes to sign off on the first works in connection with the new build before the end of this year. Please sign our petition. ******* Join our public meeting this evening******** https://fb.me/e/WJm7zwEu Follow our campaign and help us to #MakeNMHOurs This petition was created by the Campaign Against Church Ownership of Women’s Healthcare.

The Irish Centre for Fetal and Neonatal Translational Research (INFANT) is Ireland’s first dedicated perinatal research Centre. INFANT works to improve health outcomes for mothers and babies by focusing on clinical and health research and innovation in pregnancy, birth and early childhood. This is the only research Centre in Ireland focused on this work. Research focused on mothers and children must be prioritized.

Drug Policy, and the war on drugs has had children, parents, politicians and stranger murdered in broad daylight. Thanks to gang activity, I myself shake and fear at the noise of bangers going off. The entire country lives in fear of gangs, gangs fed through drug money, drug money coming from the "black market". Little do they realise that the failing drug policy, the politicians and their lobbyists are directly financing this through their stern, "moral" views on dirty drugs. It is absolutely unacceptable. I am sick & tired of burying my friends and lending their brokenhearted families a soaking shoulder to cry on because the government failed them. The governmental position on drugs, the policy set in place in the early 1970's, has absolutely failed them. Where were you when they found their bodies, that nobody heard of because the news would rather report the stash of Class A narcotics they found in a shed, behind a burnt out house and a car filled with hand guns and machetes. Where were you and where are you now? What are you going to do to change this? My name is Sandy Brun, I am a qualified Toxicologist and I hope to graduate with a Master's degree in Neuroscience & Pharmacology. You can find me on LinkedIn. I am sick and tired of burying my friends with dirty drugs in their veins, up their noses and everywhere else. I am sick and tired of being let down by this never ending agonizing political situation that is murdering my friends and breaking the hearts of their families. I've lived in Ireland since I was 10 years old, and I've buried a friend every year since I was 13. You're so proud of the 100th 1916 Easter Rising anniversary that the country celebrated 2 years ago. You're so damn proud to be Irish. You're so damn prejudicial and soft. Stand and fight. For our sons and daughters.

The Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland (PSI) Council approved rules that will mean that 248 women- in their late 50's, with an average 35 years of experience working as qualified professionals, will lose their livelihoods. The new rules would restrict a qualified Pharmaceutical Assistant (PA) to working ONE HOUR PER DAY in the absence of a pharmacist, rendering the qualification worthless and the job position economically unsustainable. If the new rules are signed into law by the Minister for Health, PA's will no longer be able to provide professional cover for pharmacists’ day off. “It is not possible to get locum cover so if the PA can’t cover I may have to remain closed some Saturdays…It’s fairly disastrous for pharmacy in Ireland”, a pharmacist explains in research carried out to assess the impact of the rules on pharmacy services. PA's have worked on average 18 years in their present pharmacies and know their customers very well. Continuity of care is paramount to patients' health and safety. This is something that PA's offer but the PSI have totally disregarded and ignored this crucial cornerstone. PA's like Sarah explain how “I will be out of a job. I am only 60 and state pension only available at 67…I have two children in college…it will be a financial disaster…I need my work and my money “, Marie spoke of how “I still have a mortgage so am worried about keeping my family home as I am a widow with a disabled adult living with me” NO consideration or provision for compensation has been made by the PSI, in drafting these rules.

Ireland is a destination and source country for women, men and children subjugated to sex trafficking and forced labour. In the past week, the US State Department has downgraded Ireland from Tier 1 to Tier 2 ranking in its latest Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, putting Ireland on par with India and Indonesia. This shouldn't be happening in a country with the resources that Ireland has. We can't accept this. We can't allow people from poorer countries to be lured to Ireland with false promises of legal visas and good wages, only to be forced into labour in the fisheries industry or producing illegal drugs. We can't allow vulnerable women and children from Ireland and abroad to be sexually exploited on our soil. We can't allow Ireland be used as an international hub for these activities! Terrible international criminal gangs have identified Ireland as a weak point and are using it as a sick trade port, where women, men and children from all over Europe and beyond are shipped into and out of, destined for terrible fates. We need to rescue these people and put a stop to it!

Savita was by all accounts a bright, vibrant, kind young woman who was failed by the state- her kindness and life as an immigrant who came to Ireland to provide care to people should be recognised and celebrated. Savita’s unnecessary death and cost to her family should be acknowledged and the role of this unnecessary death and her family’s efforts played in gaining bodily autonomy for women, (and also trans men and anyone with a womb). She deserves to be remembered, acknowledged, and her courageous family, who have been put through so much pain and hurt, deserve our thanks. Savita’s place in Ireland’s history (though a shameful chapter) is important and should be acknowledged. I would like Galway to install a memorial in her honour to remind us of her contribution to Ireland as an immigrant and to always remember her tragic death and place this as part of Ireland’s history, setting us toward the latest referendum. After this vote we need to remember Savita, and allow Irish people a place to go to pay their respects to her and her family.