The Attorney General's Office is expected to advise the Department of Health that there will be no legal implications if a floating abortion clinic docks in Dublin.
The "Women on Waves" ship, called after the Dutch-based Women On Waves foundation which owns and runs it, is due in Dublin on Thursday and is expected to visit Cork and a number of other ports during its 10-day visit.
A spokesman for the Department of Health confirmed that the Minister, Mr Martin, had sought legal advice on the implications of the ship's arrival from the Attorney General on Friday.
"We expect a reply from the AG on Monday or Tuesday, though to be honest it doesn't look as if there will be any implication," he said. The Department was also consulting the Departments of Justice and the Marine, he said.
However, there are now doubts that the ship will leave the Netherlands as anti-abortion activists there have threatened to block its departure.
Members of small Christian Protestant political parties in Holland and anti-abortion activists were said to be combing harbours and docksides at the weekend to locate the freighter chartered by the Dutch pro-abortion group.
The small anti-abortion Cry for Life organisation, led by former Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child activist Mr Bert Dorenbos, vowed that supporters who owned fishing boats would mount a blockade to stop the ship taking to sea.
He said in interviews that "a large group of people" in Reformed Protestant districts opposed to the project were ready to prevent it going ahead. Anti-abortion supporter Ms Miriam den Boer Neele, who runs a Christian pregnancy and post-abortion counselling line for the Dutch Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child, said: "We would not be in favour of mounting any pickets, that isn't our style, but as a Dutch woman I am ashamed that a floating abortion clinic flying the Dutch flag should try to foist its opinions on the Irish public."
The floating abortion clinic, which has an operating table and equipment to carry out surgical abortions, is fitted inside a former container which will be lashed to the deck of a 100 ft long chartered freighter this morning.
Though it will offer terminations to women if requested, outside the 12-mile territorial zone, a spokeswoman for Women on Waves Ireland, Ms Cathleen O'Neill, said she did not envisage abortions being carried out.
"There will, however, be supplies of the RU486 abortion pill, and these will be available, if sought, outside the 12-mile zone. This will only be available if there is evidence that the woman has sufficient medical back-up and support."
So far, she said yesterday, no women had been in touch with Women On Waves Ireland.
The ship would dock in Dublin sometime during Thursday afternoon. Women seeking its services would board and the ship would then sail outside Irish territorial waters.
"It will comply with Irish, Dutch and EU law," she said.