Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

However, I studied all the presentations that were made and I now have a settled view. I hope it is an informed view and a mature view. I have no difficulty with what Deputy O'Brien proposed for the procedures for next week. It makes sense as part of our remit was to drill down into the findings of the Citizens' Assembly. I see no reason not to follow its procedures.

I do not anticipate that everyone will agree with what it suggested, far from it, but it makes sense as a procedural way forward. It gives us a pathway. I hope that would be acceptable to the members. In general, I have no particular wisdom to give this assembly except to say that next Wednesday I will first and foremost be informed by my respect for women. In so far as I have changed, my unerring awareness that women's health and welfare is primary in this debate has grown. As a man, to a certain extent I feel a fraud in pontificating on what is really a matter for the woman in the first instance.

We will not have a final say in anything, as the Cathaoirleach well knows, no more than the Citizens' Assembly had a final say. We have important input to give and a presentation to make to Government. Through our deliberations, I hope we will assist the Government in presenting the people with a very clear and coherent choice by way of referendum next year. First and foremost, we want it to be a referendum which the people will have no difficulty understanding. That has been an issue in many referenda we have had in this country, on this issue and others. Let us hope that our presentation will help Government to formulate a coherent wording for any referendum which will go before the people. Then the people, who are sovereign, will decide. It is important that the choice they are given makes sense to them.

That is all I have to say at this stage. I thank the Cathaoirleach.