Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I appreciate the briefing documents did not contain the wording which we finalised only yesterday. A significant amount of debate and consideration took place on the issue, involving the Attorney General and eminent constitutional counsel in this area. We have to do an Irish translation and this will take a few days. The Deputy will be aware that is crucial in a constitutional referendum. The best way of dealing with the matter is for us to put our full proposals into the public domain. I ask the parties to continue discussions with the Minister of State with responsibility for children, Deputy Brian Lenihan. I consider that the best approach as everyone will have the same set of proposals and the issue will be comprehensively discussed.

The Minister of State has tried to provide extensive information in the two memorandums. We will publish them all on Monday. We will not have the Bill, the documents and the Irish translation ready until the weekend and, as I stated, we will put them all into the public domain on Monday when further conversations can continue.

Approximately seven issues are dealt with which relate to problem areas. They may be incorporated in two questions. Obviously, there is the decision of the Supreme Court in the CC case and six other points require to be dealt with also. The points are not all separate ones; some of them are grouped together. We have concluded our work but we are open to hearing the views of others. We have had a good team of eminent people working with us. We will put our case and the discussion can continue.

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