Ireland to enact new abortion law 'by end of this year', PM Leo Varadkar says

Taoiseach hails 'quiet revolution'

'This has been a great exercise in democracy and the people have spoken,' Mr Varadkar said (PA Wire/PA Images)

Ireland has a mandate to enact new legislation on abortion by the “end of this year” after the campaign to repeal the eighth amendment secured a landslide victory in the country’s referendum, Leo Varadkar has said.

“What we have seen today is a culmination of a quiet revolution that’s been taking place in Ireland for the past 10 or 20 years,” the Taoiseach, who backed repealing the amendment, told Irish broadcaster RTE.

“This has been a great exercise in democracy and the people have spoken. The people have said that we want a modern constitution for a modern country and we trust women and we respect them to make the right decisions and the right choices.

“It gives the government the mandate that we need now to bring forward the legislation that we promised and have it through the door ... and enacted before the end of this year.”

Voters in the once deeply Catholic nation were estimated to have backed liberalising abortion laws by more than two-to-one, according to two exit polls released on Friday evening.

Counting was still underway on Saturday afternoon. The first districts to declare, Galway East and Dublin Central, voted Yes by 60.2 per cent and 76.5 per cent respectively.

“It’s incredible. For all the years and years and years we’ve been trying to look after women and not been able to look after women, this means everything,” said Mary Higgins, obstetrician and Together For Yes campaigner.

A spokesman for an anti-abortion umbrella group Save The 8th John McGuirk conceded there was “no prospect” the country’s abortion ban, imposed in a 1983 referendum, would remain in place.

“What Irish voters did yesterday is a tragedy of historic proportions,” he said. “However, a wrong does not become a right simply because a majority support it.”

The country’s largest newspaper, the Irish Independent described the result as “a massive moment in Ireland’s social history”.

Campaigners for change, wearing “Repeal” jumpers and “Yes” badges, gathered at the main Dublin count centre, many in tears and hugging each other.

“Yes” campaigners argued that with over 3,000 women travelling to Britain each year for terminations – a right enshrined in a 1992 referendum – and others ordering pills illegally online, abortion is already a reality in Ireland.

The result of the referendum in Ireland also raised the prospect that women in Northern Ireland, where abortion is still illegal, may start travelling south of the border.

Reuters contributed to this report