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

I thank the Deputy. I know there has been a lot of talk during this referendum campaign about those hardest of hard cases - young women who are just girls themselves who have become pregnant, often as a result of incest, women who are victims of rape or perhaps young couples or couples with a pregnancy that is very much wanted but who get the devastating diagnosis that the child they are expecting will not survive long outside of the womb, or will not make it to birth. Although I think any crisis pregnancy is a hard case, they are certainly among the hardest of cases.

I would contend that it is actually our hard laws that create those hard cases. The eighth amendment is too hard and forces a very hard law on Irish people and Irish women. Let us not forget what the eighth amendment states. The eighth amendment is eloquent and states that the right to life of the unborn is equal to that of the mother, so the right to life of a foetus of only a few days gestation is equal to the right to life of one's mother, sister or female friends and co-workers. Furthermore, the amendment says the State must vindicate that right, and that is why such harsh and tough penalties are applied.

I heard yesterday, on, I think, the "Six One News", Deputy Ó Cuív, who I respect as an individual, say we could somehow decriminalise the abortion pill or decriminalise women who seek abortions, or somehow reduce the penalty of 14 years imprisonment for women who have abortions or anyone who helps them to have an abortion. Of course, that is not true and we know it is not true because we had legislation in this House to decriminalise abortion and it was refused on constitutional grounds. We had proposals at the time. The Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill proposed to reduce that 14-year penalty and it could not be accepted for that reason.

I have been around the Cabinet table with the current and the previous Attorney General. I have listened to former Attorneys General like Michael McDowell and John Rogers very eloquently and very clearly make the case that the fact the eighth amendment states that the unborn is equal to a woman, at any gestation, and states that we must vindicate that right is what imposes these very hard laws on Ireland and these very hard cases. What I see now, in the final, dying days of this campaign, is a tactic by the "No" campaign to try to make out there is some sort of alternative amendment that we could put into our Constitution. I would ask those people, 30 years after that amendment was put into our Constitution, why in those 30 years has nobody put forward an alternative amendment that would deal with all of these hard cases, and why, only three days from the vote, are people suddenly raising that as a realistic argument and alternative. It is not a realistic alternative; it is just a tactic, and I believe the Irish people will see through it.

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