Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly has been attacked for vowing to implement so-called ‘safe access zones’ around abortion providers that would see churches in some areas limited in their ability to display pro-life messaging on their own grounds.

Clare Independent TD Michael McNamara said the proposal seems to be “part of a culture war and a desire to be seen to be addressing a problem without even analysing whether the problem exists”.

“It’d be much more in his line to concentrate on delivering the Children’s Hospital and the National Maternity Hospital because legislation like this is, at best, an attempt to distract from the Government’s manifest failures in regard to much more core elements of their mandate,” Deputy McNamara said.

Barrister Maria Steen told The Irish Catholic the Bill is a “gross breach” of “religious rights, certainly, and also freedom of expression and freedom of assembly”.

“Many churches and parishes might celebrate Corpus Christi or have a rosary procession or something – if somebody says a prayer for the unborn children, is that then to be taken as offending against this law? For instance, things like the 40 Days for Life, there might be posters up about that on Church railings and so on – does that all fall afoul of the legislation?”

“Well, yes, on the face of it, it does,” Mrs Steen said.