Ireland will act “speedily” to implement legislation providing limited access to abortion if an expert group’s recommendation is accepted by the Cabinet, a minister has said, amid the raging controversy over the death of an Indian dentist.

The expert group set up to examine how the state deals with the issue of lawful abortions has favoured legislation allowing for the limited provision of abortion along with regulations to deal with practical matters, according to media reports.

The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Brendan Howlin insisted the Coalition would not be the seventh administration to fail to act on the 1992 Supreme Court judgment on the X case.

The X case is a landmark Irish Supreme Court case which established the right of Irish women to an abortion if a pregnant woman’s life was at risk because of pregnancy, including the risk of suicide.

The remarks by the minister come amid the controversy over the death of 31-year-old Savita Halappanavar from blood poisoning at the Galway University Hospital on October 28 after doctors allegedly refused to perform an abortion stating “this is a Catholic country”.

The expert group’s report will be discussed by Cabinet tomorrow.

“We have an expert group now to tell us in very considered detail how that is to be done and I have no doubt that this Government will act very speedily in a measured, calm way to provide for that instruction from Supreme Court,” Howlin said, speaking on Ireland’s state broadcaster RTE.

He said he hoped a “calm, considered, comprehensive” debate would begin in the Dail (Parliament) next week, “and very speedily thereafter the Government will come to its own decisions in terms of drafting legislation and presenting that to the Oireachtas (Parliament)”.

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