The Health Service Executive has agreed that it would be in the best interests of a 17-year-old girl who wants to have an abortion to travel to the UK, if a number of conditions are met.
Senior Counsel for the HSE Gerry Durcan told the High Court this afternoon that the executive would be willing to make an application to the District Court to allow Miss D to travel.
The HSE would agree that this would be in her best interests, if the district judge was satisfied the girl had considered the decision carefully, preferably after counselling.
The other conditions are that Miss D's mother consents to the travel and that the district judge is satisfied the travel is lawful.
He said the HSE was not objecting to her travelling per se, but was objecting to her travelling without District Court consent.
The girl, who is four months pregnant with a child who cannot survive after he or she is born, is the subject of a temporary care order from the District Court.
Mr Durcan said the HSE recognised the human tragedy lying behind these legal proceedings.
He said the executive did not in some sort of heartless manner cook up a strategy in relation to this girl so that she could not travel despite the horrific circumstances she found herself in.
But he said the HSE believed in these particular circumstances, the law dictated she could not travel unless she had the authority or consent of the District Court.
Lawyers for Miss D's mother said that she consented to the girl travelling for an abortion.
Senior Counsel Dervla Brown said the mother was Miss D's legal guardian and she was not acting against the best interests of the girl.
If the HSE also agreed to allow the girl travel then there was no need for a District Court order.
There will be a special sitting of the High Court this Bank Holiday Monday to allow the case to continue.
Lawyers for the State and the unborn have yet to make their submissions. Earlier, Mr Justice Liam McKechnie acknowledged that 'time is running against us'.
HSE did not consent to passport
Earlier, it has emerged that the HSE wrote to the Passport Office last week to say it had not consented to the issuing of a passport for Miss D.
The fact only came to light today.
Mr Justice McKechnie said this should have been included in the first set of documents submitted to the court by the HSE before the case began.
Mr Durcan said everyone in the executive had acted in good faith and attempted to do their best when faced with a very difficult and acute situation.
The girl is in the care of the HSE.
Mr Durcan said under the terms of a temporary care order from the District Court, the HSE did not have the power to give consent to the issuing of a passport.
Mr Justice McKechnie asked him, if so, where was the power to say no?
