Taoiseach Enda Kenny has said that if re-elected, he would commit to a referendum on abortion if there were consensus on the issue.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio as the election campaign gears up, Mr Kenny acknowledged that Ireland is “changed” since the issue of abortion first began to divide people “33 years ago”, but, despite allowing for a free vote by party members in any referendum, he insisted that his plans for a ‘citizens’ assembly’ on the abortion issue must come first.

Referencing the “brave women” who have come forward with stories of having aborted babies who would otherwise die at or shortly after birth, Mr Kenny said he was eager to “depoliticise this [issue] first of all, so I’m committing to setting up a citizens’ assembly within six months if returned to government”.

He added: “This is an issue where all the legal, medical, human stories need to be taken into consideration.”

Mr Kenny said “it would be all too glib of me to come in here and say ‘yes, we’ll have a referendum in 18 months time” before knowing what that referendum aimed to achieve.

“A referendum on what?” he asked. “Do you know what you want to take out of the Constitution or put into it? [Is it] to amend it?”

Mr Kenny said the entire issue has “got to be treated with sensitivity and respect, and that’s what I want to do with it”.

Though new coalition arrangements are possible following the February 26 polling, should Mr Kenny’s Fine Gael party return with the current junior partner, the Labour Party, the new government will be immediately pressed to deliver on Labour’s commitment to a referendum towards repealing the Constitution’s 8th Amendment protection for the unborn.