Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
PRESIDENT MICHAEL D Higgins has signed the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013 into law.
A statement from his office said that in accordance with Article 31 of the Constitution, President Higgins convened a meeting of the Council of State to discuss the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill 2013 yesterday.
Law
President Higgins has now signed the Bill into law, meaning it does not have to be forwarded to the Supreme Court to determine whether it is “repugnant to the Constitution” – or unconstitutional, in layman’s terms.
Now that the bill has been signed into law, it becomes the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act. A copy of the new act will be sent to the registrar of the Supreme Court to hold on file, while the bill will also be placed on the Irish Statute Book.
The President had until tomorrow (which was seven days after he received the bill) to decide whether to sign the bill into law or refer it to the Supreme Court.
Had the bill not been signed into law, it would have been sent to the Four Courts to be considered by the judges in the Supreme Court, who would have had 60 days to reach a decision on whether the bill was constitutional.
However, there is no need for this to take place now.
Council of State
This was President Higgins’ first time convening the Council of State, whose purpose is to aid and counsel the President during the course of some of his duties.
The members of yesterday’s council included former presidents Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese, the Taoiseach Enda Kenny and Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore, as well as the President’s nominees.
Since 1940, there have been just 26 meetings of the council held to consider whether a bill needed to be referred to the Supreme Court.
The bill
The journey of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill through the Dáil, onto the Seanad and then into the hands of the President was one fraught with debate.
It saw some TDs, Senators and one Minister of State, Lucinda Creighton, voting against the bill, leading to a number of Fine Gael TDs being removed from the parliamentary party because of their vote.
Fianna Fáil TDs and senators were allowed a free vote on the issue.
The bill also saw intense discussion within the Dáil and Seanad chambers, with one senator, Jim Walsh, in particular coming under fire for his speeches on abortion in Ireland.
It also saw numerous protests outside Leinster House, and rallies from both pro-life and pro-choice activists taking place around the country.
The act legally gives a woman access to an abortion where there is a real and substantial risk to her life, including risk of suicide.
This suicide clause – part 9 of the bill – was one of the most contentious parts of the legislation, with a number of TDs and Senators tabling amendments that would have removed this section or substantially altered it.
However, these amendments were all defeated.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Coming soon – Aldi OS
Obviously to be followed the week after by the Lidl one
Would the windows os smartphones not be the third and Firefox the fourth?
They.have blackberry and now tizen to deal with too.
LOL Microsoft mobile products. That’s a good one. Its already dead in the water along with Nokia who is flogging them. They’ve recently indicated they’re ready to make android phones in the near future and to prevent its total destruction and no amount of cash MS throws at then will make or worth their while.
I don’t see what niche Firefox OS is going to service. Their browser has been hemorrhaging users to Chrome for years, and iOS and Android are mature systems which are meeting most users needs. Another OS is just another headache for developers and users.
I have to agree with Eric here, i think they’ll struggle, android is already more or less free to use, Apple has it’s market. if these guys have a few good ideas they will just be copied by the others. Android became established because they were up against an established closed expensive opposition, they came in with the concept of being free, someone else now has to compete with two established companies the slick apple designs and the open free androids.
What’s the Firefox edge?
While OpenSource is great and all, the reality is constantly full of bugs – FireFox browser is one of the most resource heavy applications you can run
Agreed, the Android SDK feels like it’s being held together with duct tape.
You’re talking crap. If open source is so buggy then linux wouldn’t be powering 70% or more of the worlds servers. I could go on and on with examples of the crap you are talking but I think my first point illustrates it nicely.
Conor, I was referring to FireFox and it’s browser with its countless bugs, not Linux which I am fully aware of
http://m.threatpost.com/en_us/blogs/firefox-18-brings-21-updates-fixes-nearly-3000-bugs-010913
They’re really coming to the market *very* late. When you consider that even the mobile industry giant that is Nokia struggled (and ultimately failed) to get their next generation Maemo / Meego smartphone OS to market and even Windows Mobile 8 isn’t getting all that much traction so far, you’d have to wonder if there’s space for yet another mobile OS ?
To me, it looks like Android is becoming to the mobile/tablet world what Windows is to the desktop world i.e. the de facto OS. It already has 68.4% of the global market!!
Apple’s iOS is occupying a similar (but bigger) space to the Mac OS for laptops/desktops i.e. a very respectable market share of almost 20% of the global market, but a closed Apple-only hardware-software solution that occupies a chunk of the market at the high end. With that kind of chunk of the market, at the top end, and controlling the hardware, software and ecosystem (App Store). That still makes Apple an absolutely hugely profitable, runaway success.
Blackberry’s rather niche and business-focused and fighting to stay relevant while Windows Mobile is still to prove itself as a main stream mobile OS. It may well do this year, but the jury’s still out.
Personally, I just can’t see where Firefox’s Mobile OS would find a foothold in the market! It could be a great OS, but it would still have to sign up handset makers and create a massive ecosystem of developers to build apps before it would be even in the same league as Blackberry and Windows Mobile. Getting into the Google / Apple league would be a rather amazing feat if they ever achieved it!
I don’t think it’s much of a challenge to Google or Apple to be perfectly honest.
There is always a market, especially in one as competitive as the mobile phone market. The problem is you need to offer something unique that sets your product apart. iOS has simplicity, Android has customisation and Blackberry’s OS is marketed as a business solution.
Microsoft didn’t offer anything new to set it apart other than the name. What will this offer? If it does bring something new it will find traction but if it doesn’t it will be dead in the water.
I guess you’re not anybody these days unless you have a mobile operating system.
Its not going to be here 2013. Thus is firmly a third world is for this year. Cheap and cheerful, wil probably be really successful at that
Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows Mobile are the big 4.
Now it seems everyone and their mother are making operating systems for phones: Firefox, Ubuntu, Samsung Tizen. Symbian and bada are still alive somewhere.
More OS’ means more time developers take to make apps for each platform which in turn means slower updates, more bugs and less stable.
Probably means the browser…
Uh, reply to Partysaurus this was.
Mybe if they went with decent manufacturers they might have a chance but generally ZTE LG and Heuwei don’t make great handsets. This is talking from experience.
have your say