Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

Of all the referendums in all the world, the one the Taoiseach announced on the flight to the United States was rather funny. The Constitutional Convention recommended that the voting age be reduced to 16 years of age and that economic social and cultural rights be enshrined in the Constitution. I would have thought the removal of the reference to the role of women was somewhat more pressing, given its archaic and sexist connotations of the duties of women being limited to the home. I am surprised the Government has not been taken to court over the reference to women not needing to find employment. The same applies to the removal of blasphemy.

The recommendation the Government has chosen to introduce a referendum for relates to voting rights for citizens abroad or in the North for presidential elections. I would have thought that was not the most pressing of the recommendations listed.

Of course the most obvious recommendation relates to the referendum to repeal the eighth amendment. The Government has shoved that into another assembly. The eighth amendment is a long-overdue deletion. While the Citizens' Assembly and the Taoiseach are dithering, women are being denied access to proper treatment for their health. Prosecutions are taking place in the North of people who have received safe medical abortion pills. These same pills are used by women in the Republic who go to the North to get them. Dawn raids have taken place. I hope that will be taken on by the Northern Ireland Assembly and by Sinn Féin, which is now the largest party in the North. That outrage must stop. Surely the Taoiseach would agree that these are far more pressing issues than the franchise for the presidential elections.

See this speech in context