The Government has rejected claims that its referendum campaign has been damaged by the Taoiseach's acknowledgement that the majority of No campaigners do not favour liberal abortion rules.
In an interview late on Thursday on the BBC's Newsnight programme, Mr Ahern said the majority of Irish people, including those advocating a No vote, did not want a liberal regime in Ireland. He said: "Even the people who are opposed to this say that they would only bring in abortion in very, very extreme and very limited and very tight and very regulated circumstances. So the issue isn't really opened up in anyway."
But he later went on in the interview to say that nobody on the opposing side has yet "put forward any suggestions" on how the 1992 X case judgment could be "rolled back" in practice.
The leader of the Labour Party, Mr Ruairí Quinn seized on his remarks: "For the first time, he has admitted that the rejection of this flawed and dangerous referendum will not lead to a liberal abortion regime in Ireland." During the campaign, he said the Taoiseach had said the alternative to a Yes vote was the introduction of "social abortion. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Taoiseach has now accepted that fact," Mr Quinn added.
Later, Mr Quinn said abortion law could never be liberalised in Ireland beyond the X case limits unless voters broadened the terms.
"The Supreme Court has set the edge of the scope and it is that a pregnant woman would be suicidal and at risk of losing her life. That is the edge of the scope. It can't be widened, or broadened unless the Irish people agree." The legal protections for doctors offered by the Human Life in Pregnancy Bill were "very good", he accepted, but they could be achieved alone by legislation. "They do not need a referendum," he said.
However, the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, said Mr Quinn's approval of the legal protections for doctors offered by the legislation contradicted Labour's campaign rhetoric. "It is clear that the Labour Party has no coherent view as to how they would legislate for the X case, other than a vague generality of keeping within the X case parameters," Mr Martin said. Yesterday, the Taoiseach insisted there was no contradiction between his Newsnight remarks and those made in the Dáil and to the Irish media since the campaign began.
Legislation to implement the X case would be interpreted more liberally over time. "Inevitably that will happen. It will not happen the following day. But it will happen over time. It happened in other countries," he said.
Meanwhile, opposition parties have blamed the Government for a postal mix-up in which pro-life campaign literature was delivered inside some copies of the Referendum Commission's information booklet. An Post said that "only a handful" of deliveries were affected by the mistake. "But it shouldn't have happened," a spokeswoman said, adding that while the vast majority of PLC leaflets had been posted last week, a few had been caught up in the 1.3 million booklets being issued this week.
There had been "five or six" complaints, she said: "It's a storm in a tea cup." Fine Gael's campaign director, Ms Nora Owen, said the mistake was a direct result of the Government's delay in establishing the commission, and the lack of time available to issue the booklets. Labour's Mr Eamon Gilmore said the "appalling blunder" highlighted the Government's disregard for the commission's role.
Reacting to yesterday's Irish Times/MRBI poll, which gave a slight majority to the Yes camp, Fine Gael leader, Mr Noonan, predicted the No lobby would gain extra support in the final days.
"A No vote will mean that the Irish Constitution and law on abortion will remain exactly as they are today. Any subsequent legislation would have to stay within the limits set out by the Supreme Court in the X case," he said.