The Government had done its "very best" to put the best possible Bill on abortion before the public, the Taoiseach insisted yesterday as the legislation finally passed all stages in the Dβil, by 74 votes to 71.

Dismissing persistent Opposition objections about the debate being cut short, Mr Ahern said that in drawing up the Bill "we have done our very best with the best knowledge available. We have listened to the best brains and all the groups who made a case. That is as much as we can do."

He said the Government never believed it could satisfy the "extreme views", but between the two extremes, "there is a broad mass of people and we tried our best to reflect that".

The 25th Amendment to the Constitution (Protection of Human Life in Pregnancy) Bill goes to the Seanad tomorrow. It paves the way for next year's abortion referendum, scheduled to take place in the spring.

Fine Gael leader Mr Michael Noonan accused the Taoiseach of breaking the consensus Mr Ahern sought to build, by trying to "force" the Bill through by guillotining a debate about the right to life. The guillotine meant that amendments by Opposition deputies were not reached.

"This is not ordinary legislation. It goes to the heart of the Constitution because it deals with Article 40, the personal rights section," he said.

It was not a theoretical discussion because "at the core of the Government's proposal is restricting a right about the life of pregnant women which was conceded in the X Case by the Supreme Court". The Taoiseach was "taking on a huge weight of responsibility" by cutting short a debate on such a complex issue open to many interpretations. He said that what the Taoiseach was doing was "very like 1983".

Mr Noonan said there was an emerging gap in the Bill in the progress made by a scientific team in the US to clone human embryos, and this cast doubts on a section of the legislation.

Labour leader Mr Ruair∅ Quinn asked were they having the referendum "because he promised it to a member of his family on her death bed or because he has been hijacked by four Independents".

While the Taoiseach shook his head, Government backbenchers demanded a withdrawal and the Ceann Comhairle said it was "disorderly" to refer to the family of a TD. Mr Quinn withdrew the remark but said it was carried in the newspapers and attributed to the Taoiseach.

"Why are we having a referendum? What is the rush? Why can the Taoiseach not leave Members to do the job we were all elected to do?" Mr Quinn asked.

Mr Ahern said he "did it because I knew it was the right thing to do". The issue "has been around for 20 years, in one form or another".

Unfortunately, "it is not an issue on which it is possible to get consensus. It is not the only such issue in life, but moral, social and ethical issues are difficult because people have different perspectives."

His promise "was to deal with the question of abortion". He pointed out that Mr Justice Niall McCarthy and an eminent former public servant, Mr Ken Whitaker, who chaired a constitutional committee, said the issue had been left "in a difficult position".

Mr Whitaker had said "the responsibility of parliamentarians is to set guidelines and laws as clearly as they can and that they should not deliberately lead the settlement of a whole lot of obscurities to the courts".

It was up to the legislature to express very clearly what it wants in law, Mr Ahern said.

"This Government has endeavoured to do that, not overnight but over 4 1/2 years through the Cabinet committee and the Green Paper and with the assistance of the 105 people who sent in submissions and those who carried out detailed research."

Mr Quinn suggested the rush to push the legislation through might be to be "in time for the Catholic bishops to decide in a fortnight's time whether to support it".

Mr Ahern replied: "I have no idea when the Catholic bishops meet or what is on their agenda."