Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I am one of a handful of people in the room who got to vote on this in 1983. I voted not to amend the Constitution because it is not the place to legislate. That is what is being done. One is legislating in the Constitution if one includes something in the Constitution. That has coloured my opinion in respect of the view I have taken. Like Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, I tabled a motion for a straightforward repeal and that is how we should proceed. We were told by our legal adviser that there is no such thing as legal certainty, which we all accept. However, the more legal certainty there is, the less flexibility there is. We have been cursed by the fact that there has been no legal flexibility by virtue of the fact that we tied ourselves into an article in the Constitution that requires change even for the most extreme situations. That eliminates for me a number of the options that are put in front of us, which are based on entrenching legislation in the Constitution. There is nothing else entrenched in the Constitution. It would be a new departure and it would be the wrong way to go.

While I accept some of the points which have been made, my concern about repeal based on legislation published in tandem is that if it is overly restrictive, the courts may interpret it in an overly restrictive way. I have no problem specifying that this is an issue that should be embedded in health care. I will have no problem specifying that when we come to the last phase of the process when we deal with the individual items we recommend be included in legislation. Option No. 5 on "broad grounds" does exactly the same thing, in that it takes away flexibility.

Option No. 6 is the provision of exclusive powers to the Oireachtas, which is what the Citizens' Assembly recommended. I note the previous referendum result where it was sought to give more powers to Oireachtas committees. Changing the balance between the courts and the Oireachtas is not necessarily favoured by citizens. They like to have that balance and this option is, therefore, not a good way to go. I am firmly of the opinion that to repeal or not is the option that should be put to the citizens. That comes down to who one trusts. We are asking citizens to make this decision. I certainly am willing to trust women and doctors. I certainly am willing to accept the decision the citizens will make. However, we have to be clear and coherent with the question we put to them. The more straightforward question is the one which is largely expected. It is open to people to vote "Yes" or "No" to that. Those are the reasons I came to the conclusions I did on the options.

We decided on a modular approach in July and some of us expected there would be decisions after each one. I am perfectly willing to accept the honestly-held position of many members that they want more time. For that reason, I will certainly not be pressing my particular proposal until people feel comfortable with us discussing that. If that takes another few weeks, so be it. However, there are people in the room who do not want this put and who want to retain Article 40.3.3o in the Constitution. I believe they are frustrating the process and that should be called out. It is not about being in here and being disingenuous. It is fundamentally about not wanting a repeal or a discussion on it; it is about retention. Let us just say what it is. We have heard some discussion of human rights. Health is a human right and women have a right to have their human rights respected in the context of health. That is part of the reason I have taken the position I have.