Citizen’s Assembly an ideal way to take heat out of abortion issue

THE best way for us to sort the issue of abortion in Ireland is to take politicians out of the decision making process.

Something must be done about abortion as soon as possible, but in the absence of such speed, owing to the lack of political appetite, the least we can do is prepare the ground for the next Government to deal with it as soon as it is elected.

It appears contradictory, I know, to suggest excluding political influence, and then talk about the next Government handling the contentious issue. But how this could happen is that the Fine Gael/Labour government could quickly establish a Citizen’s Assembly who would, after discussion and investigation, decide on what’s best to do. Then the next Government would hold the necessary referendum early in its term of office, with the main political parties having committed to doing so during the general election campaign.