The issues to be discussed at the Citizens’ Assembly, including abortion, are beyond politics, deeply complex, hugely challenging and profoundly ethical, Taoiseach Enda Kenny has told the group.
Mr Kenny was addressing the first meeting of the group in Dublin Castle on Saturday. The assembly, made up of 99 people selected by pollsters Red C, will discuss the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution which gives equal protection to a pregnant woman and her unborn foetus.
Pro-choice campaigners are calling for the provision to be removed from the Constitution in a referendum, while anti-abortion groups want it retained.
“Your work in addressing and achieving this vital consensus on behalf of us all will affect - indeed profoundly affect - how we live our individual lives and our national life in the Republic of Ireland in the years to come,” Mr Kenny said.
He thanked those taking part for their “civic generosity and courage” in contributing to a national discussion of such significance.
Addressing the abortion issue directly, the Taoiseach said: “We are all aware that one particular aspect of your deliberations - the Eighth Amendment - has divided our country in the past.
“Today the potential for such division is the same. Today, equally, technology can see such public division deteriorate to personal derision.
Mr Kenny said social media put the assembly “within the reach and indeed the sights of those with deeply-held views on either side of any debate”.
“Regrettably, we live in a time when an opposing view is no longer seen simply as a diverse opinion on a topic worthy of attention and debate. Rather we live in a time when a diverse opinion has become something, or someone to be pitied, ridiculed, virtually hounded, or indeed destroyed.
“I would remind all commentators that posts that seem might seem devastatingly witty to them might be simply devastating to the people they refer to - to the people who receive them and indeed to their families”, he added.
Chair of the assembly, Ms Justice Mary Laffoy said being a member of the assembly was "a rare privilege and a significant undertaking" and emphasised that it had been established on foot of resolutions of both Houses of the Oireachtas.
“It is critical to the success and integrity of this assembly that the members can freely and confidently make contributions and express their views without fear of harassment or criticism.”
Ms Justice Laffoy said there was no denying that the topic of the Eighth Amendment had been “an exceptionally contentious and sensitive issue”.
She would do her utmost as chair to facilitate an open, transparent, detailed and balanced discussion on that “complex and challenging” topic.
The assembly was also addressed by Maurice Manning, chair of the Expert Advisory Group on Commemoration, and Chancellor of the National University of Ireland, who spoke on the history of social change in Ireland, Ita Mangan, chair of the Citizens’ Information Board and David Farrell, Professor of Politics at UCD.
The 99 people selected for the assembly are representative of the electorate in terms of gender, age and geography.
The assembly will discuss the abortion issue in several sessions over the coming months, seeking submissions and input from interested groups and relevant experts.
It will then make its conclusions in a report to the Oireachtas. The expectation is that this report will be delivered in the first half of next year.
Any proposal to either repeal or replace article 40.3.3 would have to be passed by the Dáil, and ultimately put to the people in a referendum.
The assembly will then go on to consider issues such as how best to respond to the challenges of an ageing population, fixed term parliaments, climate change and the manner in which referenda are held.
The assembly went into private session after the opening comments to discuss rules, procedures and a work programme. It will begin its deliberations at the next meeting in Malahide in north Dublin, on October 25th.
Cora Sherlock of the Pro-Life Campaign, who was present outside Dublin Castle during the meeting, said her group believed the assembly to be “a pretend process with a pre-arranged outcome”.
“I think there would be some merit to the assembly if it was set up with the intention of having a really comprehensive examination of all of the good things that the Eighth Amendment has done and the huge contribution that it has made to Irish life, the tens of thousands of lives that have been saved and also the fact that there is no such thing as restrictive abortion. The Eighth Amendment has meant that we don’t have what many other countries around the world have, which is widespread abortion.”
An Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll suggested this month that more than half the voters would repeal the Eighth Amendment for limited reasons, in cases of rape and fatal foetal abnormality.