Horgan, McKenna, Trimble, Purvis and Dooley say that they are all happy for Westminster politicians to interfere in Northern Ireland politics in this instance.

They say it'll be a long while before Northern Ireland women get a respresentative voice at Stormont.

'It's the nature of politics in Northern Ireland right now,' Purvis says. 'People haven't voted [for Northern Ireland politicians] along left or right lines, or along liberal lines or anything like that. They have voted for them along sectarian lines - it's divisive, sectarian, segregated politics.

'You vote for your own tribe. You don’t vote on the issues - you don’t vote on the introduction of water charges, you don’t vote on the issue of rising gas prices, you don’t vote on the issue of which party is pro choice.

'You vote along unionist/nationalist lines. That is why the parties at Stormont don’t represent everybody's point of view on this issue.'

'What we have in the Northern Ireland assembly is Protestant fundamentalists on the one side and Catholic nationalists on the other. It doesn’t represent the views of the 80,000 women who have travelled from Northern Ireland since 1967 [for legal abortion].'

Photo: Diane Abbott and Goretti Horgan, Westminster, 8 October 2008.