The controversial Bill to end the mandatory three-day wait before accessing an abortion in early pregnancy has passed second stage in the Dáil by 86 votes to 70. Cabinet Ministers opposing the legislation included Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan, Minister for Housing James Browne, Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon, Minister for Children Norma Foley, Minister for Social Protection Dara Calleary and Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke. But Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Tánaiste Simon Harris, Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers and Minister for Transport Darragh O’Brien supported the legislation.Minister for Higher Education James Lawless, Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee, Minister for Education Hildegarde Naughton and Minister for the Arts Patrick O’Donovan were not present for the vote.At present there is a compulsory three-day waiting period between when a woman can seek an abortion up to 12 weeks and be granted the medication that would end her pregnancy.Ministers of State voting against the Sinn Féin Bill included Robert Troy, John Cummins, Frankie Feighan, Sean Canney, Marian Harkin and Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran. A majority of Fianna Fáil TDs – 30 – voted against the proposal while 12 supported the Bill. A further six were absent. A majority of Fine Gael TDs also rejected the Bill with 26 against and 11 in favour. A number of TDs from Government parties had indicated in the run up that they would vote against a Sinn Féin Bill. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael TDs were given a free vote on whether to allow the Bill proceed to second stage on Wednesday evening. However, both the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste had indicated they would back the Bill. The Minister for Health also indicated she would support the Bill, with the Government set to bring forward amendments to the legislation at committee stage. Several Fianna Fáil TDs, including a minister of state, and two Fine Gael TDs, earlier told The Irish Times they would not support the Sinn Féin Bill, which was nonetheless expected to pass. Robert Troy, the Fianna Fáil TD for Longford-Westmeath and junior minister in the Department of Finance, said: “I’ll be voting against it. We made a commitment – as someone who voted for repeal the Eighth, one of the conditions we brought in was a three-day wait and we’ve seen that 10,000-plus people on reflection have decided not to proceed with the procedure.”He said the then-government had published the full legislation in advance of the 2018 referendum “in order to give people certainty on what they were voting on”. He said some people had supported repeal on the basis that “some protections and safeguards [were] in place, this being one”.“It doesn’t do politics any justice to row back a short time later and try and change things,” he said. Fianna Fáil TD for Carlow-Kilkenny John McGuinness said he would be voting against it “because I’m pro life, that’s my take on it”. “The Fianna Fáil party has always taken that view. I know the leader thinks differently, but that’s my view and the view of the vast majority of people who I represent,” he said. “The number of abortions we have had in the country has increased every year. The politicians have continued to chip away at that position.”Fianna Fáil TD for Laois Seán Fleming said he wanted the Government to put down a timed amendment – delaying the vote – and publish its intended amendments before asking its TDs to vote on it, and that he would vote against the Bill on Wednesday evening. “The Government are saying they have good proposals for amendments. My view is very simple. We should have a short, timed amendment and let the Government bring forward its own proposals,” he said. Pete Roche, a Fine Gael TD for Galway East, said he was “quite emphatic” that he would vote against the Bill. “Some people who are deeply traumatised and stressed … they go in for consultation and there’s a decent percentage who don’t go back for their second consultation and there’s a baby left alive,” he said.“Three days is a very short time and sometimes people need some space to decide with mature reflection what they want.”Party colleague Joe Cooney, TD for Clare, said he would decide during the day on Wednesday which way to vote. Fine Gael TD for Wicklow-Wexford Brian Brennan had also said he would vote against the Bill.Pádraig O’Sullivan, Fianna Fáil TD for Cork North Central, indicated he would vote against. Fianna Fáil TD for Sligo-Leitrim, Eamon Scanlon, said he believed “there’s quite a number of people alive today because of that three-day wait”.“We had a referendum, people voted in that referendum, one of the conditions was there was a three-day waiting period. I don’t know why it needs to be changed, I don’t think there’s sufficient reason to do it,” he said. Independent TD and Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture Noel Grealish said he would be voting against the Sinn Féin motion.Labour leader Ivana Bacik called for the full implementation of the O’Shea review recommendations on abortion. The 2023 review highlighted issues of access, delay and stigma, making a number of recommendations.Bacik claimed “political squeamishness and cowardice” prevent women from getting the care they need.Raising the issue in the Dáil in advance of the vote on removing the mandatory three-day wait after a first medical consultation, she said “we need to go further”. A residual insulting patriarchal mistrust of women” forms “the basis of the mandatory three-day wait and Government’s unwillingness to engage with the evidence that other change is needed”.Bacik said “we need to go further than removing the mandatory three-day wait”.“We need urgent reform of the overly restrictive provisions on fatal foetal anomaly, and we need implementation of all the recommendations from Marie O’Shea’s report,” she said.She said even if the Dáil voted for the removal of the three-day rule “it will not be enough”.The Taoiseach told her “there is a broad spectrum of sincerely held views on this issue we should respect that”. He said the Government respects that “in so far as we have a conscience vote on these issues”.