Five Fianna Fáil TDs voted against a Government amendment that blocked a Bill to allow a referendum on abortion.

The Dáil approved the amendment by 96 votes to 47 and blocked the Anti-Austerity Alliance-People Before Profit (AAA-PBP) Bill from being read a second time. Sinn Féin, Labour, the Green Party and the Social Democrats voted with the AAA-PBP.

Cork North-Central TD Billy Kelleher, Limerick TD Niall Collins, Mayo TD Lisa Chambers, Kildare South TD Fiona O’Loughlin and Clare TD Timmy Dooley voted against the Government amendment on the issue.

Party whip and Cork North-West TD Michael Moynihan abstained, as did Independent TD Maureen O’Sullivan. A majority of Fianna Fáil’s deputies voted with the Government. The party had allowed its TDs a free vote on the issue.

The dissenting party members supported the Bill which had been introduced by Dublin West TD Ruth Coppinger and Dublin South-Central TD Bríd Smith. It proposes a referendum to remove from the Constitution the equal right to life of the mother and the unborn.

Free vote

However, an amendment agreed between the Fine Gael and Independent Alliance coalition Government prevented a vote on the legislation, the 35th Amendment of the Constitution (Repeal of the Eighth Amendment) Bill.

Independent Alliance members insisted on a free vote on abortion and to avoid another bitter split in Cabinet, Fine Gael and the Independents in Government agreed a deal, after late night talks, preventing a vote on abortion.

The Citizens’ Assembly established by Taoiseach Enda Kenny to discuss abortion will report back to an Oireachtas committee in June next year and make recommendations.

The Government motion gives the Oireachtas committee an additional six months after the assembly reports to complete its deliberations. This means there will be no referendum on abortion before 2018 at the earliest.

A division in the Cabinet ensued in July on a Bill to allow abortion in cases of fatal foetal abnormality, when Independent Alliance Ministers insisted on a free vote.

Bodily autonomy

During the Dáil debate on the Bill on Tuesday night, AAA-PBP TD Ruth Coppinger said the Dáil and the electorate were very clear that Fine Gael and the Independent Alliance were, in effect, opposing the repeal of the Eighth Amendment.

“What will enrage many women and young people is that Independents, who were elected on a platform of repealing the amendment, are now buckling under a whip and kicking this issue to touch,’’ she said.

Ms Coppinger said the issue was about bodily autonomy. “The key point is we must keep women’s bodies out of the Constitution,’’ she said.

Ms Smith said the public was angry that the Taoiseach and Ministers had let women down.

Minister for Health Simon Harris said during the debate that the issue cannot be answered “with one word or three words or one Bill”.

He said the Citizens’ Assembly should be allowed to conclude its deliberations and make its recommendations.

“Tabling a referendum Bill is the easy part,” he said. “Telling the Irish people what would replace that constitutional amendment in law or elsewhere is the difficult work we have to do.”