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20th Mar 2018

Dáil reopens a day early to discuss Eighth Amendment vote

Kate Demolder

Simon Harris has said that he’s hopeful that the upcoming referendum will be held in May.

The Dáil is returning from its St Patrick’s Day break a day early to discuss the upcoming vote on the Eighth Amendment.

According to Newstalk, TDs are “prepared to sit until midnight tonight and 11pm tomorrow” debating the bill which would ultimately and officially call the referendum as well as setting a date for it.

Minister for Health, Simon Harris, spoke on his way into Cabinet this morning about how he believes a date in May is not out of the question.

“Out of fairness to all of our citizens, I think the importance of having factual and impartial information so people can make an informed decision is something we can surely all agree on,” Harris said.

“So I think if we can pass the bill through both houses of the Oireachtas before the Easter break; that would give the Referendum Commission a good period of time to run a public information campaign that could provide our citizens with factual impartial information.”

The Eighth Amendment, as it stands currently in the Constitution, provides for the equal right to life of the mother and the unborn.

The bill TDs are debating will outline the exact wording of the question that is to be put to the electorate.

The Government agreed in January that voters would be asked to repeal the Eighth Amendment, and ‘enable’ the Oireachtas to legislate for abortion.

If the Eighth Amendment is repealed, it will be replaced with the sentence: “Provision may be made by law for the regulation of termination of pregnancies.”

Fianna Fáil hasn’t openly announced whether it supports repealing the amendment or not just yet, however the party’s leader Micheál Martin did announce to a shocked Dáil back in January that he plans to endorse repealing the Eight Amendment.

The Fianna Fáil TD told the Dáil: “Retaining the 8th amendment will not make Ireland a country without abortion.”

“I support the idea of a time based cut off towards the end of the first trimester. After that we need exceptions for FFA.”

“We must each question how far we are willing to go to impose our will on others. We each have a duty to be willing to question our own views.”

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