Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

I reaffirm my support and that of my party for the introduction of this legislation and proceeding to referendum before the people. Has the Minister any idea at this point when in 2012 we will see this legislation published? It is committed in the legislative programme for 2012. It is a vague period of time; a full 12 months. Can the Minister be more specific? Will the draft wording be published in advance of the actual legislation in order to not only refer to other Departments and Cabinet colleagues but require the full support of the Houses of the Oireachtas? That is a position I want to arrive at and I would be very interested to know if we will get the draft wording in advance and have the opportunity to feed back to the Minister on it.

Regarding the work towards wording that somewhat measures up to that recommended by the all-party committee, has the Minister confidence that we will realise wording that is an advance on that first mooted by the former Government? Can she give us some sense of the ongoing work within the office of the Attorney General? Is progress being made on this issue? Is there real proactivity, and when does the Minister expect that she will be able to move to the next stage of this process?

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