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Updated 10.05pm
THE CITIZENS’ ASSEMBLY has today published its report and recommendations, and ancillary recommendations, regarding the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution.
The three main recommendations made by the Assembly were first arrived at following the balloting of its 100 members at its final weekend meeting in late April.
They are:
Should the final recommendation be adopted by the Oireachtas, a referendum would have to be held in order to ratify it.
Those three recommendations resulted from a series of votes taken from the attendant Assembly members on the 22 and 23 April:
Further recommendations were also made as to what should be included in that Constitutional legislation – for example, the reasons as to why termination should be lawful in Ireland, and the gestational limits applicable.
However, today’s report also includes five ancillary (ie, not voted upon) recommendations, arrived at using the individual responses of each of the 74 members of the Assembly who chose to fill out an individual response form on the final day of the Assembly (only 88 of the 100 members were present on the final day).
These recommendations were arrived at via a consensus (ie a majority were in agreement) of the members’ responses. The decision to include them was made as a result of feedback from the members which “indicated that they also wanted to see wider policy issues, as distinct from just legal changes, reflected in the recommendations of the Assembly”.
Those recommendations, which had not previously been seen, are:
Between 15 and 20 members calling for a recommendation (roughly 25%) was taken to be consensus.
Two further recommendations have not been made as consensus was not reached. However, the chair of the Assembly, former Supreme Court Justice Mary Laffoy, chose to mention them as a significant number of members (roughly 10%) had expressed a wish for those recommendations to be made:
The decriminalisation of abortion, including the use of the abortion pill; and recognition of and protection of female reproductive rights and autonomy; were also provided in the responses from the Members.
The full report will now be referred for consideration to the special Oireachtas committee on abortion before it in turn brings its conclusions to the Dáil for debate.
Speaking on foot of the publication of the recommendations, Health Minister Simon Harris said: “It is very important now that the Special Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment commence its work to examine the recommendations of the Citizen’s Assembly. This is an issue that, as a nation, we now need to deal with definitively.
“This must be a respectful debate and I am determined that we will prove ourselves capable of addressing these issues in a respectful way. I want to be the minister who brings forward the legislation to enable this important referendum in 2018.”
With reporting by Órla Ryan
The full report can be read here
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All the 8th amendment does is harm women’s health. Replace it with legislation that treats pregnant women and girls as autonomous humans, not Tupperware containers. The rally for lies this Saturday will be interesting.
@DaisyChainsaw: I find these, while no doubt well meaning, a tad disturbing in that the more options and recommendations that are made, the more they’ll cherry pick from and ignore but still be able to quite legitimately say they followed the advice of the Citizens’ Assembly.
That all makes sense. Hopefull the Oireachtas implements the recommendations of the report.
@Daithí Ó Coinnigh: Kenny announced when the Assembly delivered not what was wanted (by the politicians in government) that there was another committee to be set up and ‘consider’ the Assmbly’s output – i.e. Water it down or even better – drag it into a dark alley, ignore it and bull ahead regardless.
Let women determine their own treatment options – NOT politicians!!!
If you’re going to explain the word consensus, don’t do so incorrectly. Consensus is where you arrive at something acceptable to all or the vast majority. Thus, these recommendations are acceptable to the vast majority of the assembly.
Are we going to need new jumpers with REPLACE on them instead?
@Fiachrá Ó Dubhthaigh: repealing and then creating legislation for this is the best way.
Ireland’s obsession with referendums for everything really needs to stop, the only way this can stop is us stopping adding everything to the constitution even when it doesn’t need to be in it.
Repeal! It’s their choice. We are all human and I have no right to tell another human how to live.
@Nicholas J Campbell: we are all human and we ALL have a RIGHT to live.
Just bring it in, make it available for anyone who plans on having one & get it over with.
Nicholas we are all human and we all have a RIGHT to live
There still wasting taxpayer money !
Women are tax payers too and their health deserve to be properly looked after
Nicholasjcampbell we are all human and we ALL have a right to live
The first thing I have to say is “When did 25% become a consensus”. The second thing is ” I believe that the Citizens Assembly is one of the most sexist groups I’ve ever come across. Have men and boys not got an equal right to control over their reproduction . Or any ! This assembly is so biased that it didn’t even mention condoms for boys and men.
This article is either poorly written, or the Citizen’s Assembly was all over the shop.
“These recommendations were arrived at via a consensus (ie a majority were in agreement) of the members’ responses.”
and then
“Between 15 and 20 members calling for a recommendation (roughly 25%) was taken to be consensus.”
If the latter is what they viewed as a consensus, then the must have only a cursory relationship with a dictionary.
“usually in singular: A general agreement.”
have your say