Much has been said and much written about last week’s
decision by Dail Eireann to allow the killing of unborn babies. The Government
decision is to be deplored and there is no doubt that many people will work
solidly either to stop this proposed legislation in its tracks, before it is
finally enacted, or to have it overturned at the earliest possible date.
The insistence by Taoiseach Enda Kenny of the application of
the Party whip system in a case like this is also to be deplored. Party loyalty
is of course important but it is contrary to every reasonable understanding of
democracy that any deputy should be forced to vote against his or her
conscience.
Some deputies were coerced and others cajoled into
supporting the legislation and some simply said no. One of the saddest
statements was that of Michelle Mulherin who admitted that though she was
finally voting for the legislation she was doing so against her better
judgement and was doing so only to avoid being ‘booted out of the party’.
Lucinda Creighton on the other hand stood by her convictions
and voted against the legislation at a high personal cost, ejection from the
parliamentary party and loss of her ministerial post. Importantly deputy
Creighton who has shown herself to be a person of high caliber made some very
incisive remarks about the body politic and the media in this country.
On July 1st I delivered a speech in the Dáil at the Second
Stage of the abortion bill. I took the opportunity to elaborate my concerns
about abortion in a general societal sense, as well as focusing on specific
aspects of the proposed Bill which I considered, and still consider, to be
deeply flawed.
Interestingly for me, the one phrase I used which was picked
up and referenced repeatedly by media and political colleagues was “group
think”. This seemed to touch a raw nerve and some were apparently very angry
about it. My speech was incorrectly picked up as singling out members of the
Fine Gael Parliamentary Party for participating in group think. This is not
what i said.
What I said in fact, was that group think is a negative
feature in society, in the media and in political life. Increasingly we are all
supposed to think and speak the same way. There is less and less room in this
country for a diversity of opinion, for real and meaningful debate and for
genuine analysis. We are all supposed to swim with the tide on every occasion.
I consider this dangerous. I am certain that this is dangerous for our
democracy.
This was a long and difficult week, particularly for many in
the Fine Gael party. Five of us argued for the right to express an alternative
(though previously entirely accepted) view on this vitally important piece of
legislation. We lost the internal battle to have our voices heard and our
consciences respected. This is not a good thing for the democratic process in
this State.
Much of the commentary in the aftermath of Thursday’s vote
confirmed to me that our media perpetuates the blind group think which
prevailed and contributed to the economic collapse in this country. I listened
to the Friday Panel on Today with Pat Kenny. The level of analysis or
understanding of what is happening in our shambolic Parliamentary system was
alarming.
A commentator from the Irish Times seemed only capable of
understanding the events of the week in terms of “strength” “power” and
“crushing opponents”. To him is was just a numbers game. He was entirely
uninterested in the substance of the disagreement, or the fact that an
important viewpoint was ignored or “whipped into line”.
He seemed to believe that the only issue at hand was the
fact that “only five” TDs had voted against the legislation and this was
somehow a great victory for the Government, its senior figures and Fine Gael.
This is a sad and shallow analysis, which ignores the fundamental questions of
democracy which were raised thought the last few weeks when elected Members of
our Parliament were, in many instances, coerced and cajoled into voting for
legislation they clearly considered to be faulty and against their better
judgement.
My colleague
Michelle Mulherin summed this up. She has unfairly been subjected to much
criticism in recent days. I would defend her stridently, because she had the
courage to tell the truth. I understand completely the dilemma she found herself
in. I was there too. I took a different decision, by voting against the
legislation. She clearly wrestled with her ultimate decision and eventually
decided to vote for it. She did so to avoid being “booted out” of Fine Gael,
her party. I felt sick to the pit of my stomach listening to her speech in the
Dáil Chamber – out of sadness for her, and the choice she has clearly been
forced to take to avoid expulsion. There is something so, so wrong with this.
Citizens of this country ought to be concerned at the words uttered by
Michelle. They genuinely gave me a deep sense of foreboding.
In every other modern western democracy that I have studied,
public representatives are not and would never be, forced to choose between
their conscience and their party. That is worth considering and reflecting
upon. This includes Australia, New Zealand, the USA, the Netherlands, Germany,
Belgium, Switzerland and many, many more. In my investigations I could not find
any other democratic country on this planet that forces people to vote against
their conscience. Ireland has the dubious distinction of standing alone in its
denial of conscience. This is not something I am proud of. Nobody should be.
The great democrat and peace maker Mahatma Ghandi said “In
matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place”. This is correct.
History has taught us what savagery and crimes against humanity can occur, when
people abandon their conscience, for the sake of the quiet life, or worse, to
satisfy personal ambition. Our State should guard against this, rather than try
to normalise it. And we as citizens should demand that this be so.
Some might suggest that this issue of the imposition of the
“three line whip” is only coming into focus for me because I myself have just
lost the whip and been expelled or “booted it” from my parliamentary party.
However, I have been raising this concern for years. In 2010 at the MacGill
Summer School in Glenties I raised my concerns in a public fashion, and it
caused some disquiet.
“In Ireland … the most stringent form of whip, the three
line whip is imposed for every single vote. This demonstrates to me a lack of
confidence amongst political parties. It shows an immature democracy, which
urgently needs to grow up to meet the needs of a mature people. It also creates
a fertile environment for mediocrity to flourish, where politicians are enabled
and indeed encouraged to avoid individual accountability. The result of our
entrenched and archaic party whip system is that our politicians can dodge personal
responsibility for their own political decisions.”
I stand over that view. Politicians in this country really
do need to stand up and be counted. I don’t advocate the abandonment of the
Whip system. It is an essential fundament of a stable economy and a stable
society. Coherent positions and voting by political parties are essential in
the context of the annual Budget, all finance measures, social welfare measures
and so on. But there it should stop.
Those “commentators” who cheer the crushing of political
opponents, and applaud the stifling of debate in Ireland, do no service to
either good journalism or good politics. In fact they are complicit with the
rot in a system which so desperately needs changing.
Their anxiety to take quotes and spin from “well placed
sources” may make their contributions sound plausible and knowledgeable. In
fact, they are missing the real story.
Minister for Children James Reilly on Sunday Nov 22nd called
for a referendum on the issue to take place early in the next Dáil term. Reilly
called for the next government to move quickly to repeal the 8th Amendment,
which gives equal rights to the life of the mother and that of the unborn.
