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

The legislation on the safe access zones was approved by the Cabinet today, so it should be published in the next couple of days. I cannot tell the Deputy what the timeline is as that will depend on the business of the House and also the business of the Seanad. I think there will be opposition to it so it is difficult to say how long it will take to get through the Seanad and the Dáil. I would certainly expect to have that legislation enacted by the end of the year.

In regard to the O'Shea report, the Government has not made any decisions on that yet. I appreciate Deputy Bríd Smith's Private Members’ Bill is in committee but the Government has not made any decisions on our own legislation in that regard. While I acknowledge there are hundreds of women who still travel to the UK for terminations, they do so for all sorts of different reasons. The decision we made when people voted “Yes” in the referendum was that there would be abortion on request up to 12 weeks.

I know some people want to change that. That is a matter of opinion. There are also issues around disability, which is not grounds here but may be in other states.

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