Communications Minister Pat Rabbitte became the third senior Labour minister to say he would like the issue of fatal foetal abnormalities to be addressed, but said “you can’t do that within our constitution without a referendum”.
Labour leader Eamon Gilmore, deputy leader Joan Burton, and the party’s two junior health ministers have all stated they would like the issue addressed in the future.
But asked if this coalition would act on it, Mr Rabbitte said the commitment by the two parties was to legislate for the X case ruling “and no more”.
He said: “I don’t evisage in the lifetime of this Government. The economy continues to be the issues that dominates in politics at the moment because of the environment in which we find ourselves, and I don’t see us coming back to the issue in the lifetime of this Government.”
Labour is, however, increasing the pressure to hold a referendum on same-sex marriage, as recommended by the Constitutional Convention. Mr Gilmore said it was “a possibility” that a vote on the issue would take place in 2014. “I do not expect there will be an undue delay. It will be a matter of finding a suitable time for it to be held,” he said.
The Tánaiste said there were local and European elections scheduled for next year and other referenda to be held. One possibility is to take a number of the recommendations of the Constitutional Convention and hold a hold a referendum on them on the same day, he said.
However, his position is at odds with that of Fine Gael , which said no decision had been made and the issue has not yet come to cabinet.
The Government is not obliged to hold a vote, despite the recommendations of the Constitutional Convention, and the Fine Gael leader is unlikely to want to deal with any contentious social issue after losing five TDs over abortion legislation which passed through the Dáil last week.
The most senior of these, former European affairs minister Lucinda Creighton, said it was “not a good thing for the democratic process in this State” that the Fine Gael TDs “lost our battle to have our voices heard and our consciences respected”.
In a newspaper column, she quoted Mahatma Gandhi who said “in matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place”.
In a separate interview, she said there was “something unhealthy in the system, a sort of rot like the Haughey era”.