Cabinet has given the green light to progress plans for 100-metre safe access zones around abortion clinics, family planning centres, and GP surgeries.
Health Minister Stephen Donnelly hopes the proposals to protect those availing of abortion care can become a reality before Christmas.
Minister Donnelly, speaking on the way into Cabinet this morning, said he hoped this could be made law by the end of the year.
He also said the plans include all kinds of abortion clinics and family planning centres.
Consultant Obstetrician Professor Mary Higgins witnessed a protest outside her workplace, the National Maternity Hospital, in late 2019:
"Abortion care is now normal practice in medicine and this will reflect that.
"It needs to continue to be normal and people should be able to present in privacy and not feel their decisions are being questioned by someone who doesn't know what's going on in a person's life."
This comes more than four years after the Eighth Amendment was removed from the Constitution allowing politicians to legislate for terminations.
