Think your talking another 20 years there Peter. Usual standard I guess.

It’ll be like reillys free GP care plan, due to be signed just after the next election if they’re voted back in.

You’re wrong. The Programme for Government commits the cabinet to act. The report back on implementing the decision of the ECHR is a key part of driving legislation forward. Some people think that legislation is as easy as clicking your fingers. Just one resolution in the Dáil and it’s all done. There ar e two vitally important things to remember (1) we still need to get a majority for legislating for X in the Oireachtas and that is far from a foregone conclusion, and (2) any resulting legislation will have to sustain the inevitable constitutional challenge from this who equate the value of women’s lives with that of a foetus.

@ Desmond O’Toole, matters in a Programme for Government are often ignored and impose no legal obligation on a Government. Legislating for the X case will not provide an adequate legal or medical solution. The root cause of the current legal quagmire is Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution, the Eight Amendment. The only clean, certain and legally effective solution is to repeal Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution. That requires a new Referendum.

In the meantime, and as a temporary life saving expedient, it is easy to legislate for the specific mischief in Savita’s case because of the narrowness of the situation and to fit this within the four majority judgements in the 1992 x case. Lawyers sometimes refer to a fatal legal flaw but it is extremely rare that this is a literal description.

I have researched the Constitutions, in some cases translated into English and the legislation of a vast number of legal jurisdictions. There is nothing comparable to Article 40.3.3 of the Irish Constitution which imposes parity between the interests of the woman and of the foetus.

Desmond, please on serve the antics of the TDs when there was not even an acceptance of the ned for primary legislation and the hair brained suggestions of revising and developing the medical guidelines. Please ombré rev that it is more than 20 years since the X case and please look at the legal arguments made by Dr Gerard Hogan as he then was. There has been egregious delay so far, perhaps because despite warnings in 1983, no TD actually though the pernicious and dangerous Article 40.3.3 would cause the death of at least two women and possibly more.

The sad reality is that the primary driver on all of this is that, with some honourable and brave exceptions, politicians are afraid to alienate voting support from the minority of pro-life extremists. So, with consummate skill, politicians ably assisted by handlers, spin doctors, advisers and consultants devise strategies to kick the can down the road. In 6 months time, we will see if you are right and I am wrong.

Question. Clare Daly’s bill is being or has been revised to reflect Minister Reilly’s objections and to fit within the X case. Do you thing that even if the Bill were to be legally perfect and constitutionally robust that the main political parties will vote for it even though designed to save the lives of a small minority of women? Of course, they won’t. Fear is the great political motivator.

I think that the public have moved on since 1983 and I am confident that unless the Government by delay, passivity and fear allows the small minority of extreme pro- lifers to hijack the issue, the 2013 electorate, born after 1968 will vote to repeal this pernicious constitutional provision which is just Roman Catholic dogma.

As a man expressed it in a letter to the Irish Times last week, he valued his wife beyond all the foetuses in the universe.

Anyway, we have a legally inappropriate HIQA inquiry instead of a Commission of Investigation and I have been refused a copy of Judge Ryan’s Expert Report. I want to see that Report and analyse it against the research I have been doing. I have sent in a Freedom of Information Act request but it may be that the government might honour its commitment to publish the already partially leaked report under public pressure.

We could teach Sir Humphrey a lot, don’t you agree?

Desmond, I have checked out your political credentials. In view of your senior and highly influential position in the Labour Party, you are in an authoritative position to correct me and tell me I am wrong. Thank you for correction. I accept that I must be wrong since you know best.

Please, however, indulge a mere member of the public, an ordinary and unaligned voter, with replies to the following:-

1. By what date will the Goverment introduce legislation to address the X case?

2. What is your personal stance on Clare Daly’s proposed new bill?

3. What is your position and the position of the Labour Party on Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution?

4. Do you accept or believe that there is any life threatening urgency attaching to legislating for the X case?

5. Are you content with the performance of the Labour Party on this issue since 1983 to date ?

6. Do you think that the Labour Party should have resisted and campaigned against the Eight Amendment in 1982?

I have avoided some of the trickier questions and I am only trying to flush out you sincere position on this issue. Please feel free to distinguish between your personal position and the official position of the Labour Party.

Apologies for delay in responding, Richard. I’m commenting in a personal capacity and have no brief to speak for Labour other than as an ordinary party activist. The answers to your questions:

1. The government issued its planned timescales following this week’s cabinet meeting. Legislation is likely to be introduced in either late January or February.

2. I share my party’s position on Daly’s latest bill. Clare Daly has made no attempt to garner support form TDs outside of her immediate circle and the bill itself is weakly drafted and inadequate to survive constitutional challenge. For both these reasons I do not support it.

3. Labour Party policy is in favour of access by to free, safe and legal abortions in Ireland in line with prevailing European practice. That inevitably means that we wish to see the repeal of Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution. Labour supports Irish women’s ability to exercise their full reproductive rights and whatever autonomous choices that entails. Labour is the only party in Dáil Éireann with a pro-choice position.

4. Yes. Manifestly there is a life-threatening urgency to legislating on X. However, legislation has to be able to secure the support of a majority of TDs and to be secure from constitutional challenge .. hence, the time needed to legislate for X in this Dáil.

5. Not content at all, but I recognise that it is only in recent years that there has been sufficient public support to provide legislation on X.

6. Yes, and many of my comrades did precisely that. However, the early 80s was a different country as anyone who remembers that period knows.

Well, the ECHR has no power to compel the Irish government to do anything so whatever the court decides it’ll, unfortunately, fall on deaf ears…

Where did you hear that?

we voted against Lisbon to protect our independence & prevent rule from Europe,
but they wouldn’t accept the voice of the Irish people,
& frightened them into voting Yes,
& now Europe will try & enforce abortion on us, whether we want it or not..

Lets face it, it’s not her death that’s spurred them into action, it’s the international incident that her death has caused. If she had been some Irish farmers wife it would have sunk without a trace behind a HSE internal investigation.

Savita’s death is not what initiated this action by government. This arose from the ABC cases that were brought to the ECHR and which the government lost. The state is required to issue a report to the European Council committee responsible for ensuring that governments enforce decisions of the ECHR. Savita’s death has made it much more likely that this government will not kick abortion legislation to touch like its six predecessors. But don’t forget the brave women who brought the original cases to the European Court of Human Rights. They’re heroes in this saga as well.

Has anybody bothered to read the article?nIt has nothing to do with Savita. It’s a separate issue.

The Government always stamps “European obligation” onto any course of action which may prove controversial. That way it’s not their fault.

I never said it did !

Go back to CSPE class

What makes you think this is a separate issue … ?

Shut up Joe.

Penelope, your reply is far better than mine! It is exactly the right way to reply to idiots.