The health minister says he wants Fine Gael to campaign for another abortion referendum to be held after the next election.

Leo Varadkar says the current laws on abortion are failing women, but Fine Gael currently doesn't have a mandate to change them.

He's rejecting a bill debated in the Dáil today, which would allow abortion in cases of fatal foetal abnormality.

He says the bill is in breach of the constitution, but the current government had not been elected on a platform to extend it.

But that logic was disputed by other TDs - including one who called the argument "horseshit".

Clare Daly, who tabled today's bill, says the government is failing its most vulnerable and distressed women by refusing to allow them to end pregnancies which are doomed to end in tragedy.

Our political correspondent Gavan Reilly filed this report for Today FM's National Lunchtime News: