Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Earlier someone said this was a very bad moment. I think it is a great moment for Ireland, for all the people of Ireland. One of the members spoke of the denial of dignity for a whole section of the community, I believe they were referring to unborn children. Women in Ireland have been denied dignity for years now. I spoke earlier about abstract women, but these are our neighbours, the person serving us in a shop, they are colleagues, nieces, aunts and daughters. From the outset, in the Citizens' Assembly, there were sections which spoke of it being a predetermined process. When the result of the assembly came out, they said its recommendations were said to be far broader than anyone could accept, the process was wrong, the way its members were chosen was wrong. There were arguments put forward, with people asking why there were no people from certain counties when, if one read the process, it was very clear why the process of picking the 99 citizens did not operate on the basis of county boundaries. Then their arguments moved on to accusations that the committee is biased when things are not going right, and then the witnesses are biased. Here we are now, we have come to this moment and I commend Deputy Jonathan O'Brien for putting the proposal forward. Now that we are over that, which is a good thing, we can move on to where we need to be.

Where do we need to be? The lack of certainty is the issue. One thing the committee has learned is that there is no such thing as certainty in any of the options put before us; none of them are iron-clad. Then we must ask which of the uncertainties that may emerge is most readily rectified so that we could ask how we might fix it.

There are six options and I do not want to repeat everything that has been said already but three, that is options two, four and five, are off the table. This is because they have legislation entrenched in the Constitution, meaning if there ever was a change there would have to be another referendum. This is a fluid process and I felt one way last week but another way today but I rule those three options out. Option three involves legislation and I do not know if we will publish the legal advice but this is a political solution. We might never put legislation before the people which details what we will do if the amendment is repealed. Any such legislation could be amended so we have to ask if we would be acting honestly with the people and we would have to be very careful about it. People could ask if we pulled the wool over the eyes of the people of Ireland in such a context so there remain two options for me, numbers one and six. I dealt with number one last week but I have thought about it a lot since and I believe option six is still an option. I have to consider where it came from and we have to tease it out a bit more. There is a high degree of flexibility with this option and it will come down to whether the people of Ireland trust the Oireachtas to do their will during the legislative process. In the next couple of months, the importance of who the people put in these Houses will be highlighted. It is not just about the lad who fixed the road - this is about fundamental human rights, women's rights in Ireland. It is so important that a person who puts his or her X in the box for their No. 1 choice knows who they are getting if that person is elected.