Although Micheal Martin had previously stated that his party would not campaign for the repeal of the Eighth Amendment on abortion, he told Newstalk Lunchtime today that he a wants to see judge-led commission in the next Dáil term to deal with the controversial matter.
Earlier this year, Micheal Martin said his party members will have a free vote if the issue is raised - but won't bring any proposals themselves.
Speaking to Newstalk Lunchtime today about the future government in Ireland, he stated: "We need to start talking about issues."
On the issue of the Eighth Amendment, he stated: "We were the first party, we were ahead of the curve in terms of saying this is an issue of conscience for individual Dáil deputies and we took that decision in the context of the Protection of Life in pregnancy Bill over two years ago, that bill came before the house. We allowed a free vote on conscience to each member of the party.
"Enda Kenny is now saying he may do that for Fine Gael deputies after the next General Election.
"Secondly, we had previously written to Minister Varadkar, Billy Kelleher, our spokesman had, suggesting and proposing the idea of a judge-led commission, an expert commission, to tease out all aspects of what is a very complex issue, legal, medical and a range of other issues. That hasn't got a response.
"We still believe that a judicial-led expert group that would then make recommendations to the Oireachtas and that the Oireachtas would then decide, obviously, on step forwards after that, is the best route."
You can listen to his full interview here:
Earlier this year, Mr Martin stated: “We said collectively as a political party that we would not initiate moves to repeal the eighth.
“From our perspective we have freedom of conscience within the parliamentary party.”
“We’re not going to initiate a referendum to appeal it.”
The debate on repeal “would have to be very much equally about what would replace the eighth,” Mr Martin said.
He added that he believes some people ”have an anticipation that if the 8th amendment was to repealed something else would have to come in its place, either via legislation or in another constitutional amendment.”
