Monday 18 August 2014 14.20 Minister for Education Jan O'Sullivan has said she would like to see a referendum held on repealing the eighth amendment to the Constitution, which "acknowledged the right to life of the unborn, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother".
However, the minister said it will not happen under the current Government.
Speaking this morning, Ms O'Sullivan said a future government would have to look at holding another referendum.
She added: "I personally would be concerned in particular about the issue where a mother has to carry a foetus that is not going to survive outside the womb.
She said she believed that women in particular feel strongly that such cases need to be revisited.
Commenting on a case that emerged in media reports over the weekend, Ms O'Sullivan said it was a very, very difficult case.
A young woman had a baby delivered by caesarean section after a panel of experts convened under the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act decided not to permit an abortion.
The woman has said she was raped.
Ms O'Sullivan said there appeared to have been some time delay in the case but she did not know the reasons for it.
She said she could not comment further on the individual case.
Ms O'Sullivan said the legislation that has been introduced was all that was possible under the Constitution.
She said the monitoring process attached to the legislation had to be allowed to take its course and that the legislation must be kept under review.
Meanwhile, Labour Senator and legal professor Ivana Bacik has said the constitutional convention should be convened in the lifetime of this Government to review the constitutional position on abortion.
Speaking on RTÉ's News at One, she said the convention should look at repealing the eighth amendment to ensure that a rational set of legislative measures on abortion is put in place.
Ms Bacik said the Protection of Life During Pregnancy legislation was very restrictive, but was very much hemmed in by the constitutional parameters.
Speaking on the same programme, Caroline Simons, legal consultant and spokesperson for the Pro Life Campaign said once there was a departure from evidence-based medicine as the basis on which decisions were made in critical pregnancies, then situations like the case reported in recent days would arise.
Reacting to the call by Ms Bacik for the constitutional convention to be convened to look at the issue, Ms Simons said it was the Labour Party's wish to remove any protection that existed for an unborn baby.
Ms Simons said the Protection of Life During Pregnancy legislation was not restrictive.
She said the legislation was requiring people to do something for which there was no medical evidence.
Elsewhere, the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has said it will gather feedback on how the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act works in practice.
It said it will share this with Minister for Health Leo Varadkar to inform his report on the issue next year.
The institute said it does not comment on individual cases.
It added that its members work within the legal framework.
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