Save the 8th has issued the following statement on the launch of Fine Gael TDs campaigning for a YES vote:

Communications Director John McGuirk said: “The Taoiseach has been unable to unite his own party around this campaign. Almost half of his own TDs and Senators either outwardly oppose him, or will not openly support him.

That is because his proposal, which would allow abortion on UK grounds to six months, is too extreme, and goes too far for most middle of the road politicians and voters.

The Taoiseach said today that a YES vote would be about becoming a country that trusts women. This raises a simple question: Is the Taoiseach saying that for the overwhelming majority of his political career, he did not trust women?

It is very simple – either the Taoiseach is fibbing and spinning and sloganeering when he says that this vote is about “Trusting Women”, or his own position for most of his career was that he did not trust them himself. Which is it? It cannot be both.

Of course, the simpler explanation is that the Taoiseach is doing what politicians do – engaging in cheap and misleading branding, hoping that people will forget what they said yesterday, and hoping that people will buy “brand Leo” and trust him.

They should not. After all, this is a man who seems to be explicitly saying he didn’t trust women for 90% of his life”.