Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have nothing much to add to what I said in my initial contribution. My argument that this issue should be dealt with by the next Dáil was, in many ways, emphasised by Deputy Anne Ferris, who pointed out that given the time remaining in the lifetime of this Dáil it is not possible to do the work suggested. I believe we need to give parties an opportunity to review their mandates. My party was elected on the mandate that it would not legislate for abortion. We feel honour-bound to respect that mandate, at least for the duration of this term in office. In recent months, other parties have amended and refined their positions on this issue, with Sinn Féin having adopted a new revised position on it and Fianna Fáil having voted at its Ard-Fheis to defend the eighth amendment. Fine Gael has not yet had an opportunity to consider what will be in its manifesto on this issue. Therefore, we do not have a mandate to legislate for abortion.

Deputy Halligan mentioned opinion polls. Anybody who stayed up late last night will know that opinion polls are not always right. While pollsters will argue that it was within the margin of error, and they are probably correct, we know in this country that opinion polls can indicate one thing but when the papers tumble out of the ballot boxes, the result can be somewhat different. To the extent that opinion polls do matter, they indicate that the clear majority of Irish people do not support on demand or request but do support it in certain defined circumstances.

A number of Deputies spoke about the Catholic Church. Some of the speakers opposite are, perhaps, a little bit obsessed with the church for reasons I do not understand. As somebody who was brought up a Catholic but is not religious, I do not understand why other people who are religious are so obsessed by the church. The church has certainly done a lot of wrong down through the years, in particular in terms of its treatment of children and women but it has also done a lot of good. Most of the primary schools in our constituencies were established under the patronage of the church and paid for and subsidised by the church for years.

The same applies to hospitals such as the Mater, St. Vincent's and many others which were established by religious orders when the State was either too weak or not sufficiently interested to provide health and education. Even now, Catholic charities do enormously powerful and important work. The pastoral work of parishes is very valuable and faith is very important to a great many people. However, I think we can all agree that decisions that are made about the future of our Republic should be made based on what we believe is best for citizens and not our attitude to the church, whether that be a favourable or a negative one.

I thank Deputies for their contributions to this debate. I am sure this is a matter we will discuss again.

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