I wish to raise the circumstances surrounding the Y case and the subsequent report. The last time I addressed this issue was on the day the Dáil went into recess. That was in the week when the United Nations criticised the Irish abortion regime, particularly in cases of rape, incest, fatal foetal abnormality and where the woman’s health is at risk.

Since then there has been the tragic Y case and the publication of draft guidelines which appear to be even more restrictive than the limited legislation. Under the guidelines, Ms Y would be even less likely to have received the termination she requested. A consultant psychiatrist, Veronica O’Keane, writing in The Sunday Business Post said that the opening statement of the draft guidelines serve to reinforce the complete prohibition on abortion and not, as one might expect, to make abortion legal when a woman’s life is at risk.

Over the summer we read the barbaric details of the Y case. A very young woman arrived in a foreign country having been raped and was told that it was not within her financial remit to have a termination. After attempting suicide she was forced to deliver the baby through an unwanted caesarean section. There have been the X case and the tragic Savita Halappanavar case. We are running out of letters in the alphabet for these cases. Behind each one is a real woman who happens to be a wife, a sister, a mother, a daughter.

This Saturday people will take to the streets in a march for choice. Each time this happens the numbers grow. How many times will it take for this to happen before the Government listens and acts?

To judge by the report, the young woman involved was not even consulted. Everyone else seems to have been consulted but not her. The Government can ignore the calls for the repeal of the eighth amendment. The last time I asked the Tánaiste about this she said people were consulted in 1983. One had to have been born before 1966 to have been consulted then.

Did the Tánaiste see the guidelines? Did she agree to the guidelines? Is she aware that the guidelines are more restrictive than the legislation? Will she acknowledge the public calls to repeal the eighth amendment and the changing public opinion on repealing it?

We are all aware that the Y case is a very sad one of a young woman who arrived in Ireland as an asylum seeker. Subsequently her baby was delivered. My concern in discussing this is that her confidentiality and vulnerability should be respected, as should those of the baby. This involves a young mother and a baby. We want to see the best outcomes for both. She has since been granted refugee status in Ireland. I also understand that she is in contact, through her legal representatives, with the team inquiring into the circumstances of what happened.

The information published recently in the media is not a report. It arises from work being carried out in the context of the report's being prepared. Ms Y, through her legal advisers, which is appropriate, is in some contact with the people carrying out the inquiry. That is a matter for her and her legal advisers. It is important that we do not intrude on her privacy or that of the baby in respect of this inquiry, which I hope will conclude as quickly as possible. We will then get the full facts of the case.

As we know since this case first came into the public domain and in the information published to date and broadcast this week, there seems to be information missing about what happened to her at various stages. This is not a report. Nothing has been published. It would be appropriate to wait until the full facts of this case, as far as they can be established, are published by the HSE inquiry team. The chief executive of the HSE made that commitment in late August.

The Minister for Health and the HSE published the guidelines last week. I expect that doctors involved in the care of women during pregnancy, at birth and after pregnancy, will discuss and consider those guidelines.

I believe I answered the Deputy’s question on the eighth amendment before. In 1983 the Labour Party did not support the introduction of the eighth amendment into the Irish Constitution. I told the Deputy that the people voted for an amendment to the Constitution in their wisdom and many parties in this House supported the amendment. I campaigned against it at the time.

I agree with the Deputy that public opinion in this matter has changed. I remind her that approximately 70,000 babies are born in Ireland every year. We want those babies to be wanted, and we want them to be born in the best possible circumstances.

A draft report was published in the newspapers this week.

There was no draft. Sorry, it was not published.

The report was highly critical of the disjointed nature of the process and the impossibility of co-ordinating a response. I have to say that is really setting alarm bells ringing with regard to the protection of women in situations in which their lives are at risk. I acknowledge the role the Labour Party played in 1983. It was brave. It was against public opinion. It took courage. The Tánaiste is letting down the people who went out in 1983. It seems that the position she took then is not one she is prepared to take now, when public opinion is on her side and she is in a position to do something about it. I have to say that must be hugely disappointing for Labour Party people. The Tánaiste did not adequately answer the question I asked about the guidelines. Is she satisfied with them? They row back on the legislation, which was restrictive in itself. Did she agree to them? Is she happy that the restrictive legislation is being restricted further by the guidelines? What role did she play in agreeing them?

If I may say so, I think the Deputy is rushing to judgment.

She is not.

I can understand why she is doing so, given her own stance. She has always been upfront about these issues. I respect that. I think she is rushing to judgment, however. I want to draw a distinction in this regard. We have to find the actual facts of the case. It says on each page of the document that was published earlier that it "is a draft document and can only be considered as such". It is also made clear that the document "can be expected to contain factual/clinical inaccuracies and/or information that may require additional clarification". I put it to the Deputy that it is not a report. It is not even a draft report. It consists of workings and draft documentation in relation to a report that will be very important to establish the facts of what happened. The Deputy is asking me to anticipate the outcome of the report. I cannot do that because I do not know the facts. I want to be very clear about that.

On the guidelines, I would like to say my view is that the legislation passed by the Dáil has operated up to now to protect the life of the mother and life of the baby during pregnancy, which is what it was designed to do. From what we know from the public domain, the circumstances of this case came to the panel, in line with the operation of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013, at a very late stage of the pregnancy. If the Deputy is suggesting that somebody should be given an abortion at 24 weeks, I want-----

The Tánaiste is going off on a tangent.

-----to make it clear that-----

That is not what she said at all.

That is outrageous.

-----it is not a position-----

The Tánaiste is waffling.

-----I agree with.

She was deliberately fobbed off.

The Tánaiste is only a waffler.

I want to make it clear that-----

The Government should hold a referendum.

-----it is not a position I support.

The Tánaiste is waffling.

What we do not know, and what we need to wait for the report to get the best possible information on, is what actually happened to the young woman in the period between the identification of the pregnancy and her appearance before the panel in the context of the operation of the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013. We do not yet know the answers in this regard.

What about the guidelines?

That is why I think Deputy Murphy is jumping to conclusions before we get the facts.

She is not.