TD urges abortion referendum ‘at earliest opportunity’

October 2000

A WICKLOW TD is urging the Government to give the Irish people the opportunity to express their views on abortion at the earliest opportunity.

In a submission to the Oireachtas joint committee on abortion, Deputy Dick Roche argued that a clear majority of Irish people want to clarify the situation which resulted from the Supreme Court’s decision in the X case.

Deputy Roche told the committee chairman that ‘ the people should be given the opportunity to again record their views on this most fundamental issue at the earliest date’.

The Fianna Fail man hit out at the confusion about abortion which he said had been created in some political quarters in recent months.

He condemned a senior spokesman for a major political party for speaking ‘in the most disparaging terms of those people who espouse the pro-life cause’ in the pages of an Irish Sunday newspapers, while ‘ keeping his comments disguised behind a shield of anonymity.’

The Bray-based TD also criticised one other political party for its argument that the ambiguities created by the X case could be addressed by legislation.

‘ The senior politicians in this country who are putting forward this particular viewpoint know full well that this course of action will create a situation similar to that which has pertained in other countries and open the floodgates to a situation which the Irish people will reject,’ he argued.