Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Exactly, that is the point. Even with the Bill, setting aside this issue, the Minister is having to go on the balance of probability and the best advice he can get as to whether what he has put forward as being compatible with the Constitution will pass muster if it is challenged legally. The Minister does not have certainty, yet he is pressing ahead because he feels it is important to press ahead and because he advises that he has a reasonable chance of this passing muster legally. The point we are making to him here is that there is very substantial legal support, argument and advice that this provision we propose to allow for terminations in cases of fatal foetal abnormality also have a good chance - nothing is certain, as the Minister of State, Deputy White, stated - of passing muster legally. They have as good a chance, one could argue, as certain other aspects of it and that is why I was raising the other matter. I was not trying to bring it up. I was simply making the point that a former Attorney General has advised that other aspects of this Bill could be challenged. Presumably, that has not led the Minister to change the Bill. He is pressing ahead, even though he may face a legal challenge.