A new board to provide support structures for women in crisis pregnancies would be set up with funding of £50 million over 10 years under a Fine Gael private member's Bill which was published yesterday.
The party's spokesman on health, Mr Gay Mitchell, said the Care of Persons Board would support and facilitate expectant mothers experiencing a crisis pregnancy to bring her pregnancy to full-term.
"Much of the debate to date has centred on the argument for or against a further constitutional amendment," Mr Mitchell said.
Fine Gael had made an input into the All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution in relation to the issue of abortion. Whatever proposal on abortion the Government chose to put forward, support structures were still needed for expectant mothers, he said.
"Nobody knows the numbers of Irish women having abortions outside the State, but it is clear that a significant number of women do. According to the report of the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution, the statistics show that, in 1971, 578 women normally resident in the Republic of Ireland had abortions in the UK, while in 1999 the figure was estimated at 6,226."
More than a third of these women had given as reasons for having an abortion the stigma of having a child, that they were financially not ready, or that they could not cope with a baby.
The Bill published yesterday was a "thoughtful, pro-active response" to the situation, he said.