Citizens' Assembly: Extra weekend set aside for discussion of 8th Amendment
The Citizens' Assembly has been given extra time to discuss the issue of the Eight Amendment,
The Assembly met this weekend and voted to set aside an additional weekend to consider recommendations around the Eight Amendment.
Chairperson Ms Justice Mary Laffoy said "it became absolutely obvious that we needed an additional weekend".
But she promised that this would not impact on the commitment to report back to the Oirechatas within the first half of 2017.
She added that the Assembly had received approximately 13,500 submissions - around 8,000 of these received via email while more than 5,000 were posted.
Ms Justice Laffoy said the large number of submissions proved the "high level of public engagement with the issue". She added that it would take four to six weeks before all submissions are available online.
She said the extra weekend of April 22, would now be used to "focus on making recommendations to the Oireachtas".
She added that after spending considerable time discussing the issue and hearing from experts as well as personal stories it would be "inappropriate" to "shoe-horn" making recommendations into a single morning.
