A MEMBER of a group of women who hold weekly prayer vigils outside University Maternity Hospital Limerick (UMHL) has strongly denied claims that she attempts to engage with women outside the hospital.
“I do no such thing, nor have I ever done so,” said Antoinette Fitzgibbon, who prays the rosary while walking the boundary of the hospital each Wednesday.
She also denied that she attends the hospital as “a protestor and campaigner”, saying she was “neither of which…or ever have been there, any more than I am the recipient of the Maternity’s abortion schedules”.
Limerick-based group Together for Safety previously claimed that hospital staff had leaked information about terminations to anti-abortion groups as they believe the timing of these vigils coincided with the times of abortion procedures.
However, Ms Fitzgibbon says she has no contacts working in UMHL.
She concluded: “The Maternity Hospital has made it publicly clear that they have received no complaints regarding citizens walking along the public footpath who may or may not be there in quiet prayer.
“As long as we live in a democracy, it is entirely within our rights to walk with a friend on the public footpath saying anything we like whether privately or in lowered tones be it prayer or otherwise. Should rights be removed now from the average citizen to satisfy the leanings of a minority of extremists?”
