A special Cabinet meeting is to be held today to consider the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Bill.

Meanwhile, the country's Catholic hierarchy has said that every Irish citizen should be deeply concerned about the Government's planned abortion legislation.

The Catholic bishops said no individual and no State had the right to undermine the right to life.

They claimed  Government was under no obligation to legislate for the X case and people were being misled.

The bishops said that  from what had been published to date, the legislation would allow for a 'very wide margin of subjective professional assessment' by which the deliberate destruction of an unborn baby could be legally justified.

"As we have learned from other countries, such legislation opens the door to ever-wider availability of abortion,' they said.