Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his good wishes and the good wishes to the staff.

My understanding is that the Convention on the Constitution has come to the end of its work. There are certainly no proposals to reconvene it this year. I am not aware of any other proposals to do so either. Clearly, the matters relating to the eighth amendment to the Constitution require very careful consideration and debate. As was said earlier by Deputy Calleary, there is a wide range of views on it. In the case of my party, the Labour Party, we advocated against that particular change to the Constitution being adopted by the people. The people, in their wisdom, decided to adopt it, however. As democrats we have to accept that.

There are serious matters with this issue which require detailed debate. There has been no decision on the convention being a mechanism for that kind of detailed debate, however. On previous occasions, expert groups and committees have looked at the some of the extremely complex issues which arise in these cases.

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