Tánaiste: Too early to speculate on abortion

Tánaiste and Labour leader Eamon Gilmore has said it is “too early to speculate” on whether the Government will introduce legislation on abortion to comply with a European court judgment.

One of his junior ministers has predicted that legislation will ultimately be required — something that could spark deep divisions within the coalition.

An expert group is examining how best Ireland can comply with a 2010 European Court of Human Rights judgment on the issue, and is expected to report back in September.

While the group has been tasked with recommending a series of options, Kathleen Lynch, a Labour junior minister, said she believed the Government would ultimately have to legislate.

“I think it will be fairly certain that they will recommend legislation,” she told RTÉ radio.

Mr Gilmore, speaking separately at a summer school in Donegal, refused to speculate on what the expert group would recommend.

“We don’t know what’s in their report. Until we do, I think it would be too early to speculate (on) what will be required.”

Mr Gilmore played down suggestions that the issue could destabilise the Coalition.

“No, I’m not concerned about that. This is a coalition government, there are two parties in it. I think we have shown over the life of this Government our ability to deal with the issues as they arise, to reach agreement on them.”

He acknowledged it was a “sensitive issue” that aroused a “lot of concern”.

He said the parties had committed in the programme for government to establish the expert group to examine the issue. The group would “inform government as to what is the best way to deal with it”.

The issue of legislation has been a political landmine since the 1992 Supreme Court judgment in the X case.

In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that abortion was permissible in Ireland in cases where a mother’s life, as distinct from her health, was at risk. This included the risk of suicide.

Successive governments failed to legislate to clarify the exact range of circumstances where a mother’s life would be deemed at risk.

In 2010, the Court of Human Rights found that a woman’s rights had been breached because of Ireland’s failure to provide a regulatory or legislative procedure by which she could establish whether she qualified for a lawful abortion.

As a result, the Government is now under pressure to put such a procedure in place, and the expert group will advise on how it can be done.

However, while Labour wants to legislate for the X case, there are deep divisions within Fine Gael over the issue.

Labour’s Ms Lynch, for her part, said she didn’t think the Government would have a choice.

“Clearly, there will be differences, but in terms of legislation, in this particular instance, we won’t have a choice.”