Seanad debates

Thursday, 27 November 2003

Address by Ms Nuala Ahern, MEP.

 

The constitutional difficulties the issue presents in Ireland are very complex because we have no legislation to deal with it. We are open to all kinds of events here that we would not be able to control under the law as we do not have legislation. It is for this reason that we should not fund this at European level now. We should leave this discussion until the seventh framework programme which we are already discussing. There are only about 12 projects and a very small amount of money. If this research was to be funded under the framework programme it should have been in the specific research programme. We avoided putting it there as we did not have the full ethical situation teased out. For many people in Europe it is not just a religious problem, even though that is what it tends to be in this country, as many people have ethical objections to the use of embryos who have no religious belief at all. The situation is very complex and it is a large step to take.

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