Howlin rules out any further referendums before election

The Irish people will not be asked to vote in an other referendum before the next general election, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin has confirmed.

He was responding to a United Nations committee report calling on Ireland to hold a referendum on abortion.

There will be no referendums of any description between now and the next general election, that’s quite clear,” Mr Howlin said.

However, Mr Howlin said the Labour Party's next general election manifesto would include a proposal to repeal the Eighth Amendment, which governs Ireland's abortion laws.

“From my own party perspective we’ve said that we will put the issue of repealing that article in the constitution in our manifesto and we will seek a mandate for that in the next Dail,” he said.

The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights concluded in a report published on Monday that two referendums must be held to vindicate the economic, social and cultural rights of women in Ireland.

It said a referendum on abortion and another on the position of women were necessary following two days of hearings on Ireland’s compliance with the International Covenant on ESCR earlier this month.

The 17-member committee heard from 12 NGOs and from a Government delegation led by Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Sean Sherlock at the hearings in Geneva.

It was the first time Ireland had appeared before the committee in 13 years, and Monday’s report will be seen by many as something of a “report card” on how the State protected its citizens’ rights in areas such as housing, education and health, though seven years of austerity.

The committee made 45 recommendations, which might be loosely divided between women’s rights, the rights of religious minorities and the rights of vulnerable groups during austerity.

On women’s sexual and reproductive health, the committee said it was concerned at Ireland’s “highly restrictive legislation on abortion”.

It called for a referendum to repeal Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution, which guarantees to protect, as far as practicable, the equal right to life of the unborn and the pregnant woman or girl.