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

History was made on Friday. It was made by 1,429,981 people who came out with hope in their hearts to vote for compassion in our Constitution. As a country we said to Irish women, we trust you and we respect your choices about your healthcare. More people voted on Friday to remove the eighth amendment than the combined number of people who voted on both sides in 1983. It was, therefore, a resounding act of democracy. Thirty-five years ago, the 1983 referendum was described on the front pages of the newspapers as having split our country into two nations - urban versus rural, Dublin, which voted against the amendment, against the rest of the country. Today we are not a divided country. We do not have red states and blue states. Men and women from all regions and all social classes, rural Ireland and urban Ireland and almost all age groups voted yes.

In this Oireachtas and beyond, there are women and men from all political parties and none who campaigned and led on this issue for many years. Some campaigned for decades and opposed the eighth amendment before it was inserted into our Constitution, showing great courage when it was easier to comply. We owe a debt of gratitude to these people. We also owe a debt to the hundreds and thousands of people who went out canvassing, often for the first time, to try to open hearts and change minds. I hope they will remember that their movement was watched by the entire world and that they will remain engaged in politics because there is much, much more to do. There is always more to do.

Most of all, we owe a debt of gratitude to those who shared their personal stories in recent weeks and months, women and men who opened their hearts and so enabled others to open their minds. We were moved by their searing experiences and we were determined to ensure that their stories were not shared in vain. Saturday's result shows that we heard what they had to say loud and clear. The days of cold, hard judgment, which cast a long shadow in this country, are banished to the past. To younger women and men we said, this is your country and one you can be proud of.

Ireland's past is a foreign country; we did things differently there. Now let us look to the future. In advance of the referendum, the Government published the general scheme of the Bill so that people would know what they were voting for. This morning the Minister for Health received approval from Cabinet to start drafting this legislation formally and as a priority. However, it is not just about legislation and new laws. There are a number of other items that we also need, including the development of clinical guidelines for doctors written by the medical colleges and institutions, and also the regulation and licensing of certain medicines. All things going to plan, we will proceed with the drafting of the new laws required and bring the legislation into the Oireachtas before the summer recess. Our speed will be tempered only by our determination to get this right, to ensure a safe service for women and ensure there are no flaws in the legislation that would open it up to legal challenge and delay. We are confident we can complete all this work before the end of the year and we look forward to working with Deputies and Senators from all sides to ensure we get this right.

We also restate our promise that we want to do more to reduce the number of crisis pregnancies and reduce the number of abortions further. We want more sex education and wider availability of contraception and emergency contraception. Abortion rates are already falling and teenage pregnancies are at their lowest since the 1960s because of them. The Government will continue to improve access to sexual health and education to reduce crisis pregnancies and abortions further in the year ahead, so that they become rare.

We want to continue to make Ireland a better place in which to raise a family. We have started on this, with two years of free preschool now guaranteed to every child, free GP visits for young children, subsidised child care, paid paternity leave, as well as increases in the working family payment and home carer's tax credit for two years in a row. We will do more because we want Ireland to be one of the best places in the world in which to raise a family - families in their many forms.

All weekend I found myself reflecting on the referendum result and what the scale of the victory meant. It demonstrates that politics can bring about change and that democracy does work. On Saturday I quoted one of my favourite poets, Maya Angelou, because her whole life reminds us of how one can transform the agony of one's life experiences into a beautiful call for equality before the law, tolerance and respect. Saturday's result was such a call. It is a call which has resounded around the world.

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