Ms Mary O'Toole:

First of all, what I attempted to do for the committee was to outline the cases that have arisen so that members can see, on a practical level, how the thing works.

That is my only intention. I can comment only on what is on the public record. If individual litigants have different views after cases, that is a matter for them. What we are concerned with is how the courts actually deal with the rights in question and, when asked to make a judgment, what they take into account. That is what I was dealing with in terms of both the C case and the P case.

When I refer to "surprising outcomes of law," what I am talking about in that context is that during the course of the amendment campaign in 1983 a great number of people believed they would be voting to ensure there would be no abortion in Ireland. A great many people would also have said during that debate that the amendment would not have had implications in any area other than in dealing with the issue of abortion. When I talk about surprising outcomes, I mean it in that context. I mean that one puts words in the Constitution and they have an impact in other areas with which one is not actually dealing in the context of the debate at the time of the referendum. Nobody was talking about what would happen if the mother died or what would happen in respect of the unborn in the case of a pregnant woman in the asylum system. Nobody addressed any of these issues; that was not what was at stake. What was at stake was abortion law in Ireland. We framed the amendment and the people voted on it in that way.

If I am asked whether the provision has been substantially successful, I imagine it depends entirely n one's view. Suffice it to say members are all here to discuss whether the provision should be changed. Presumably because there has been a sense that there is a view among the public that the wording should perhaps be changed, the extent to which it should be changed is a matter for members, as politicians, to discuss. It is the politician's role to put it before the people as that is their function. I hope that answers Senator Rónán Mullen's question.