THE Fianna Fail leader, Mr Ahern, has undertaken that he will pursue a combination of constitutional and legal action to deal with the Supreme Court decision in the X case.
He implicitly put the abortion issue on the election agenda at the press conference to launch the party's manifesto yesterday.
Advocating that it was not "tenable" for people to ignore the judgment in the X case, which makes abortion lawful in limited circumstances, Mr Ahern promised he would deal with the issue in government.
He said the party's expert group had finalised its report in the previous 24 hours, and he would, in government, prepare a Green Paper on the issue to try to get a greater consensus than had existed over the years, when hostility had been created on the matter. These papers would then be referred to the Dail's all party committee on the Constitution.
I will deal with this issue on the basis of the constitutional limbo that is there. The constitutional and legal issues will have to be dealt with," he added.
Pressed to clarify the way in which he would deal with the implications of the X case, Mr Ahern suggested that there were many ways of doing so. There was the constitutional route, the legislative route and a combination of both under Article 27 of the Constitution. These were issues that would be decided in due course.
"The commitment made by Mr Spring and Mr Bruton is that they are not going to deal with this issue. They believe that the present position is tenable. Fianna Fail does not accept that. We believe that the present position is not tenable," Mr Ahern said.
If there was an issue in this election, it was that Fianna Fail would have the courage to push a difficult issue into some kind of order he concluded.
The Progressive Democrats studiously avoided any comment on Mr Ahern's position. A spokesman would only state yesterday that they were awaiting the Oireachtas all party committee's deliberations.
It has been consistent PD policy to oppose another referendum and to legislate for the X case judgment.
In the wake of Mr Ahern's remarks, the ProLife Campaign cancelled a press conference planned for yesterday afternoon in order to seek further clarification of the Fianna Fail leader's position.
The PLC's legal adviser, Prof William Binchy, said later in a statement that political leaders had so far lacked courage on the abortion issue. It would continue to lobby parties and candidates intensively to support an abortion referendum.
