Lisa Chambers (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Ms Justice Laffoy, Ms Finegan and Ms Hynes and ask them to excuse the brevity of my questions. I am under pressure of time as well. There were allegations that the Citizens' Assembly was not representative of our country and of Irish society, for many reasons. In particular, there was a view that it was not representative because there was no representative from each county in the country. How does Ms Justice Laffoy reply to that allegation? Is she satisfied that the debate was balanced and that all sides were represented in terms of presenting with witnesses and evidence to the assembly?

The Citizens' Assembly met over a period of four weeks and during a fifth to vote. How transformative was that process in Ms Justice Laffoy's view? She was asked if people's minds were changed but did it allow people to get to a stage where they could make a decision and vote? Was that a transformative process where, perhaps, when they started they were not in a position to say what they believed or what they wanted?

My final question is perhaps speculative and Ms Justice Laffoy might not be able to answer it. Some 64% of members recommended termination of pregnancy without restriction. It has been suggested that this happened because when they focused on the issues of rape and incest it became apparent that it was almost impossible to legislate for those. Was it on the basis of allowing for such instances that they felt there had to be a period of unrestricted access?