The Taoiseach has rejected claims from the Archbishop of Dublin that new abortion laws will give less rights to the life of the unborn.

Writing in The Irish Times Archbishop Diarmaid Martin expresses the concern about the inclusion of the risk of suicide where the foetus is viable.

In a letter to the newspaper, he said his concern relates to situations where the unborn child is viable at the time a termination is being considered.

He said his anxiety is that it would be permissible for doctors to certify that the medical procedure necessary to avert the risk to the woman's life consisted of the "termination of her pregnancy". This could happen in such a manner that would bring an end to the life of the unborn before delivery at a stage when the child would be delivered alive if a different method of termination were used.

'Only treatment is one where child is delivered'

He said the only medical treatment in line with the Constitutional protection of such an unborn child would be one in which the child was safely delivered.

He concluded by saying that "There is a growing impression that the judgment of the X-Case 'is the Constitution'. I believe that it is an interpretation given in a specific case which does not supersede or relativise the clear constitutional right to equal protection for unborn life in the circumstances which I have outlined. Indeed under Head 4 it would give the life of such an unborn child less protection than is guaranteed in liberal abortion laws in other countries".

But speaking at an event in Dublin Enda Kenny said he had seen the letter and the measures to be introduced would be constitutional and cover the equal right to life.