Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

To begin, my proposal was not in any way trying to back anyone in this committee into a corner to make a decision tonight. We had a very frank discussion in private session on how we should proceed and everyone who expressed a view was respected and listened to, regardless of their position. It is very unfortunate that some people chose not to express any opinion in private, as is their right.

The reason I put the proposal forward was because I felt that in order to deal with the options available to us - the very varying options which range from straight-up repeal to putting in a replacement on specific or broad grounds or legislation to be entrenched in the Constitution - it needed further, detailed discussion by this committee in public. I believe the only way we could have that public discussion on the options was to make a decision not to retain Article 40.3.3° in full. I am very glad that the committee has done that. I recognise that does not tie the hands of anyone on the committee to any particular option which is being discussed. If we can have that discussion in the same comradely and open manner in which we have had all our discussions to date, in which we have been very respectful of each others views, then this committee will be going in the right direction.

Whatever the outcome at the end of this process, people can say that this committee was not a farce and we listened to all the opinions. Even today, we had an opinion from Professor Peter Boylan when he discussed the issue of rape and how we could address that. I made a note of what he said which was that there was a straightforward way of legislating for cases involving rape which was the legal prescription of the abortion pill. Other witnesses who have told the committee that it would be very difficult to legislate on the grounds of rape. It is important that we continue to hear the testimony from our witnesses which will frame any decision that we will make on the options. In order to get there, we had to have that vote earlier this evening. Senator Mullen knows my position on this. He talks about democracy but what he tried to do tonight was deny democracy to the Irish people to make a decision on this. If someone wants to vote in a referendum to retain the status quo, that is their right. We are giving them that opportunity by making a decision not to retain it in full and to look at the options.

I look forward to the committee continuing its work in the same manner as it has done to date. It is important that we try to reach a decision as quickly as possible now that we have decided that we are not going to retain Article 40.3.3° in the Constitution. We have the different options before us, my view being that option 1, of straight-up repeal, is the best. Options 2, 4 and 5 include some form of replacement to be inserted into the Constitution; I do not believe that is where we should deal with women's health issues so for that reason I do not support them.

Option 6, to insert a provision that the legislature would have to legislate for it, taking it outside the scope of the Judiciary which I feel would be a mistake. We need to retain that separation of power between the Legislature and the Judiciary. Option 6 would not be a good option.

Option 3 is to have published legislation in tandem. The difficulty with that is there is no guarantee that the published legislation would be passed by the Oireachtas and I would not like to put any published legislation as part of the referendum when there is no guarantee that it would pass through the Houses of the Oireachtas. The best option is straight-up repeal, it is the one that I favour. I respect that others have not come to that conclusion and they may never come to that conclusion; they may favour another option and that is their right but it is was important to make that decision this evening.