Meanwhile, In Leinster House

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From left: Anti-Austerity Alliance TD Ruth Coppinger; convenor of Coalition to Repeal the 8th, Ailbhe Smyth; People Before Profit TD Brid Smyth; president of the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) Annie Hoey and Orla O’Connor, of the National Women’s Council of Ireland

The AV Room this afternoon.

At an Oireachtas briefing on a bill proposing to repeal the 8th amendment by the Anti-Austerity Alliance and the People Before Profit parties.

From the briefing…

Meanwhile, free this evening?

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Via Ailbhe Smyth

Earlier: In Solidarity

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43 thoughts on “Meanwhile, In Leinster House

  1. Eamonn Clancy

    As pointless as thinking all trade union members vote Labour. What people are saying in public about supporting repeal, in private it’s a different story, as there’s a whole new closet people have yet to come out of.

    1. ahjayzis

      This ‘silent majority’ bullsh1t starts wearing thin after so many years.

      The anti choicers are a small rabble with fat wallets, a loudhailer and a phantom army that’ll appear any day now, just you wait.

      1. Daisy Chainsaw

        They can fly them in for “rallies”, but they don’t have a vote here. And despite the incestuous crossovers between all the anti choice groups, they all only get to vote once each.

        1. Turgenev

          Thanks be to jaysus emigrants don’t have a vote in Ireland! All those rabid old Irish-American Catholics would be voting for laws they don’t have to live under.

    2. realPolithicks

      “What people are saying in public about supporting repeal, in private it’s a different story,”

      What’s your basis for this statement?

    3. Starina

      people said the same thing about the marriage equality referendum. “oh the poor bullied silent majority”. and the numbers showed in the end, that that was rubbish.

    1. Bob

      Does this mean you won’t be complaining when anyone here makes a comment about the appearance of anti-choice protestors?

    2. Daisy Chainsaw

      They tend not to go the “models in bikinis on Grafton St” route to launch their campaign.

          1. ahjayzis

            Bitch, please.

            Outside your rural knitting circle there is only one Dana and Rosemary Scallon is but her servant.

  2. newsjustin

    Is the Bill to hold a referendum to repeal the 8th amendment? Or have they thought od another way of doing it? The text above isn’t clear, the bill seems to be to remove the amendment – no mention of a vote and, well, you never know.

        1. MoyestWithExcitement

          What in the Jayzus are you talking about? ‘There’s no mention of a vote in the bill but yeah ok a vote has to happen according to the rules but that doesn’t rule out show boating for the media.’ Huh?

          1. newsjustin

            A referendum is needed to amend the constitution. But it would not be altogether surprising if a bill were produced that ignored this. Sure, the AG might complain, but she’s just one opinion.

            Either way, this bill has a worse chance of being passed in the Oireachtas than I have of being the next king of England. It is being wheeled out to showboat and get attention for the campaign to remove article on 40.3.3 of the constitution, even though everyone on that panel knows that a vote on that will emerge from the Citizens Assembly.

          2. MoyestWithExcitement

            “A referendum is needed to amend the constitution. But it would not be altogether surprising if a bill were produced that ignored this.”

            Huh??? A referendum is needed to change the constitution. What are you imagining here? They’ll write some sneaky text into the bill which tries to get it passed without a vote? Do you have any basis whatsoever for this “thought” of yours? Any precedents?

            “It is being wheeled out to showboat and get attention for the campaign to remove article on 40.3.3 of the constitution,”

            And? Was the March for Choice “show boating” as well?

          3. newsjustin

            Clare Day TD and Mick Wallace TD both, in different Dails and as recent as last June, proposed unconstitutional bills on the topic of abortion.

            It would be surprising, but not entirely unbelievable, if some felt that unconstitutional bills made sense these days.

            The March was a rally and for publicity. As this bill is.

          4. MoyestWithExcitement

            “Clare Day TD and Mick Wallace TD both, in different Dails and as recent as last June, proposed unconstitutional bills on the topic of abortion.”

            You also said “Sure, the AG might complain, but she’s just one opinion.”

            So why are you claiming the AG’s opinion is fact now and why is that bill relevant to our conversation? Do you think if the TDs voted for it, it wouldn’t go to referendum?

            “The March was a rally and for publicity. As this bill is.”

            And water is wet. Not sure what point you think you’re making.

      1. newsjustin

        Bodger’s intro says it’s “a bill proposing to repeal the 8th amendment”

        You may vote any way you like. As long as it’s to repeal.

        1. MoyestWithExcitement

          “You may vote any way you like. As long as it’s to repeal.”

          You really think of yourself and your friends as downtrodden Christian martyrs, don’t you.

          1. MoyestWithExcitement

            “You may vote any way you like. As long as it’s to repeal.”

            No, *that* was a weird thing to say.

          2. newsjustin

            It was a riff on the Nice referendum and how Bodger’s reference to the bill doesn’t mention a referendum.

            You brought religion and martyrdom into it because…….well……I don’t know why.

          3. MoyestWithExcitement

            Because your position comes from the church and you regularly frame opposition to church dictated oppression as just an innocent opinion.

    1. rotide

      Skipping all the nitpicking above, I sort of agree with Newsjustin here.

      Either the bill is to call a referendum or its like the two previous constituitionaly unsound bills.

      There’s no indication either way what this is so as a result comes across as just noise.

  3. Truth in the News

    There is a huge body of public opinion that will oppose abortion and all the current publicity campaigns
    will only wake up this body, anyone thinking that its the right wingers in the Catholic Church, Opus Dei
    Knights of Columbanus that will motivate public opinion and lead opposition has got it wrong, its that there
    is huge body of the Irish electorate that oppose abortion on moral grounds…..we had a bout of righteous
    indignation about what happened in Tuam in the past, we rightly condemn it, yet we would accept abortion.
    what next…….

    1. Turgenev

      If it is so that there’s a huge body of public opinion that will oppose abortion, Truth in the News, that huge body should be campaigning vigorously for a vote on whether to keep the 8th Amendment, since they’re bound to win any such vote.

      1. Truth in the News

        Most unlikely, you might imagine it from the footfall in marches in Dublin
        that there is support, try and emulate this nationally it will soon become
        apparent whose is in the majority…in fact the sooner a vote is taken to
        attempt the repeal the better, remember what happened in the Senate
        issue, under no circumstances under estimate the body politic outside
        the pale

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