Fine Gael's deputy leader is calling for an abortion referendum early in the next Dáil term.

The Minister for Children James Reilly says the next government should move quickly to repeal the 8th amendment - the article giving an equal right to life to a mother and her unborn child.

Interviewed in today's Sunday Independent Minister Reilly said women carrying babies with fatal foetal abnormalities should not be forced to go through with their pregnancies.

He also said it was "very difficult" to ask women who've been raped to carry a child.