The Green Party MEP Ms Nuala Ahern has lodged a complaint about the abortion referendum with the Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe.
Ms Ahern said we cannot introduce into the Constitution a law that allows the Government to police medical records. "The Protection of Human Life in Pregnancy Bill gives Ministers the right to demand medical records from doctors who intervene in a crisis pregnancy to save a mother's life."
She made the complaint to Mr Alvaro Gil-Robles, the Commissioner for Human Rights, and the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Dr Walter Schwimmer. Ms Ahern said she would take a case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg if the referendum was passed.
"The referendum wording undermines a European directive on the protection of personal data, adopted in 1995, the foundation of which is Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which guarantees the protection of private and family life."
The Government was asking us to vote on an illegal text that "flies in the face of all human rights legislation relating to protection of personal data. The vague wording of the referendum is open to limitless interpretations." Disclosure of "deeply private and sensitive information" was illegal under EU and human rights law, she said.
On the referendum, party leader Mr Trevor Sargent said it was always going to be difficult to adopt a united party position on what was a very complex and personal issue. Its position is to legislate, if in government, on the basis of the X case, "taking into account the best medical advice, rather than further confuse people with an oversimplified referendum choice. That being said, we are faced with a referendum, and speaking personally, I hope it is to be roundly defeated".
He said the complexity and sensitivity of this issue makes each vote on Wednesday a very personal decision.
However, Mr Larry Gordan from Rathfarnham, Dublin said he was unhappy with the Green TDs' and senators' decision to take an anti-amendment stance without consulting the party.
He had no difficulty with people having an individual stance but said that as a party there was no agreed position, or "commanding majority" to cause it to come out against the Government's proposals.