Dr. Maria Cahill:

Not that much easier but sometimes, yes. First, I find it alarming that Mr. Callanan would equate a Google search as having the same judicial value as a High Court decision. This appears to me to be not entirely in sync with what the Constitution requires. In response to Senator Crown, I repeat my statement about the X case, which was not that it was a flawed decision but that it was a non-decision. Moreover, for that I am relying on a Supreme Court decision. It should be borne in mind that the precedential value of court decisions is not determined by the Senator, the Taoiseach or the Minister for Health but by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has held that if a point is conceded, the precedential value of that case is vanished. The Supreme Court in 1965 has provided an answer to what has happened in the X case. It has stated that when the argument is conceded, the precedential value has disappeared to vanishing point. The person on whom I am relying and who first made that argument is a person with 29 years' experience on the Supreme Court. Consequently, I believe we can take what he says seriously.

On the point of referendums, I have heard the Senator making this argument many times and have been answering him on the television at home-----