Senator Ronan Mullen has attacked the Health Minister Stephen Donnelly alleging an opaque and misleading process of appointing a Chair to review the operation of the Abortion Act.

Speaking in the Seanad yesterday, the Independent NUI Senator said there was meant to be an open tendering process to find an Independent Chair. However, it has since emerged that there was no open tender; the Minister invited a few candidates to apply.

“What they are trying to do is to cover their tracks afterwards by claiming what they meant by tender was this secret process of contacting a small number of suitable candidates. For all we know now they were actually looking for a crony or somebody who actually was, if you like, on the abortion side of the argument because we have had no honesty and no reassurance,” he said.

“They say that they were going to tender openly and they do not do it. They tender secretly and they never tell us that they are going to do that. Then they change a press release but they do not alert the media to the fact that they have done so. It is nothing but dishonesty, I am afraid. It is an apology that they owe us, and it is not the Minister of State who should have been asked to come in and answer this today”.