Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

-----because it is a very messy subject as far as he is concerned but for thousands of women throughout the country it is a key issue. The Taoiseach just listed a host of issues the citizens' assembly will look into, including everything from fixed-term Parliaments to the ageing population but let us throw in the eighth amendment as well. The best that some of the Independent Deputies, who when on this side of the House last year voted to repeal the eighth amendment, could do is on page 158 of a 160 page document.

We know the Taoiseach will establish the citizens' assembly within six months but will he tell us when it will report? Will it do so in the lifetime of this Government or will he attempt to push this issue aside and kick the can down the road yet again?

I have an issue with the title of the assembly or committee. This issue does not just affect citizens. It affects non-citizens in quite an acute way because women who are pregnant in this country who do not have citizenship and who may have been working and living here for years do not have the same freedom of movement as other people and it is a very important issue for migrant women. The title should be changed. One in four of my constituents is from outside Ireland. Some of them are now citizens but others are not. It is quite a dangerous precedent.

How will the fine upstanding citizens to rule on these issues be chosen? How will the membership of the committee be chosen? Will it have a majority of women of childbearing age to deliberate on this topic? Will there be any bishops or religious representatives in the assembly? How exactly will the Taoiseach decide who is fit to decide women's personal decisions over their own bodies and futures?

Last year, when the referendum on marriage equality was taking place, many people really resented the fact a majority of people would make the decision over what would only affect a minority in society. I have a problem with this also. This should never have been put into our Constitution because these are personal matters. It does not matter to me if a majority agrees as it will only affect a particular cohort of people and it is their personal decision to make. The decision was taken 33 years ago at the behest mainly of a Catholic lobby as no other religious groups or people demanded it. I have studied this, as have many others. As that decision was taken, we are left with no option but to have a referendum.

I want to ask the Taoiseach about the democratic issue here. The only way a referendum can be triggered in this country is if a majority of Deputies in Dáil Éireann decide it can happen. This is not democratic either. In the context of the democratic revolution the Taoiseach planned in the last term, he might reconsider this. There should be some way the people of the country can petition for a plebiscite or referendum to be held because poll after poll has shown that anything from 78% to 80% of people believe there should be a referendum on this matter but the Taoiseach is preventing this from happening and he has now outsourced it to a committee.

I have an issue with this outsourcing. The Taoiseach is outsourcing water and housing and now he is outsourcing this issue. Why are politicians to be excluded from it? Is it because it is awkward for the Taoiseach because he bowed down to the so-called pro-life lobby a few years back and he does not want to make a decision on this? We are elected by people to make decisions, including difficult ones. Why should it be unelected people who decide how this issue proceeds? It should be a majority of people who were recently elected, who stood before the public on this issue. Many of us stood on a fully pro-choice platform and it did not inhibit us in any way from getting elected.

I do not think the Taoiseach recognises there has been a sea change in attitudes on this issue but I can tell him that there has because I have been on the streets at a number of stalls with ROSA and other groups. It is clear people have shifted and they recognise we cannot export women from this country any longer or deny the reality that every day in bedrooms throughout the country women take abortion pills which they ordered online because they cannot afford or are not in a position to leave the country for a very expensive operation.

Why did the Taoiseach choose to do this? Why are Independent Deputies Katherine Zappone, Finian McGrath and John Halligan, who stated they were pro-choice, willing to accept such a meagre recognition of this issue in terms of the citizens' assembly?

See this speech in context