The first and deputy first ministers are expected to release their shared future strategy paper for Northern Ireland later. The document – Together Building A United Community – will spell out how the barriers will be reduced between the two communities in NI.
Independent TD Mattie McGrath this morning asked Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore if he knew if Alan Shatter [before he became Justice Minister] had been stopped at a garda checkpoint, asked to produce a specimen of breath and if his subsequent behaviour and reaction to this request was “appropriate and indeed cordial?”.
Mr McMcGrath also asked if Mr Gilmore knew if Mr Shatter had attempted to use the TDs’ privilege of immunity from traffic charges while travelling to and from the Dail “as a means of avoiding the breath test”.
Professor John Crown, consultant oncologist and Seanad member has proposed that all members of the Oireachtas swear an oath of allegiance to the Constitution. His initiative may have been prompted by the proposed abortion legislation. A piece which he wrote in last weekend’s Sunday Independent (now on his blog) has irked some of his opponents.
He writes:
Not for the first time, an attempt is being made to overthrow and discard our constitutional system of republican government. A cabal of insurrectionists, sympathetic to the agents of a foreign state are, as you read this, plotting and executing a coup d’etat. This is not your standard tanks-on-the-Leinster House lawn-type of coup, but a coup it is nonetheless. It is, in fact, a thoroughly Irish coup.
What this new composite “Tae Party” fringe is proposing is that the Government, in legislating for abortion in the strictly limited case where there is a threat to the life (as distinct to the health) of the mother, should completely ignore both the Supreme Court and the wishes of the ultimate sovereign in a democratic republic – the voice of the people, who not once but twice voted NO! in popular referenda to exclude suicide as a valid threat to life.
The conspiracy goes to the very top of our political structure, with TDs, senators and at least one minister indicating that they might thumb their noses at our Bunreacht and vote against constitutionally mandated legislation. Incredibly, they are being egged on by a former Taoiseach.
The foreign power is, of course, the Vatican, a sovereign state that orchestrated numerous plots to obstruct constitutionally mandated justice for child victims of abuse in multiple countries around the world. The agents of this oligarchic dictatorship are interfering in our democracy as surely as, but thankfully much less effectively than did the Italians and Germans in aiding the overthrow of the Spanish Republic in the 1930s. Thinking people will be particularly offended by the interference of Cardinal Brady, who once swore two small children to secrecy under oath about their testimony to a liturgical inquiry into the abuse they had suffered.
Article 34.4.6 of the Constitution states that “the decision of the Supreme Court shall in all cases be final and definitive”.
I recently proposed in the Seanad that our elected parliamentarians should be asked to swear an oath of allegiance to our republic and to its constitution. This was partly motivated by my irritation that certain TDs and senators who were elected and are paid by, and who represent the citizens of our republic, refuse to acknowledge the very existence of the Republic, preferring to reserve that sacred designation for an imaginary political entity that is about as likely to come into reality as Narnia, Oz or Klingon.
The question has to be asked: “Why shouldn’t our teachtai and senators swear loyalty to our republic and to its constitution?” Those who won’t swear it on the basis of selective conscientious objection should not be allowed to serve in our Oireachtas, any more than a Justice of the Supreme Court or a general in the real Oglaigh na hEireann who refused to be sworn in would be allowed to serve.
It is time to call their bluff, and to tell them that their primary loyalty as parliamentarians is to uphold the Constitution.
@profjohncrown Your article on Sunday was a bitter vitriolic anti-Catholic monologue. It belittled you. It did not belittle Catholics. Shame
Pro-life medic Dr Sean O’Domhnaill on US Christian telly station EWTN to drum up dollars and support (but mainly dollars) from devout Americans.
(Scroll to 39:00)
Sean O’Domhnaill: “We’ve a very strong connection with the pro-life movement in America it’s been really strongly developed really back kind of ’90 round about ’92. And em in 1992 we had our first if you like Roe vs Wade moment you know, a Supreme Court ruling. A 14 year old girl who you know she had become pregnant with rape because we had a constitutional ban on abortion, the Supreme Court interpreted the ban as allowing for abortion in cases where the woman was suicidal. So that was kind of left there. It’s been hanging. There was a big, big push and there was an American element to that as well because.”
Raymond Arroyo: “I gotta ask you a big push by whom?”
O’Domhnaill: “Oh yeah. The big money coming in on the pro-abortion side is coming in from Planned Parenthood. It’s coming in from Atlantic Philanthropies, you know Chuck Feeney’s Atlantic Philanthropies. So you know that’s big money coming in em from abroad for nearly 30 years you know. So we had that and then of course this recent thing where we had a very unfortunate case of an Indian lady who was 17 weeks pregnant and she miscarried and before…I mean.. the inquiry is underway at the moment and before the inquiry is even heard. The word was leaked and we know from the transcripts of you know Google Chat and stuff like this. The pro-aborts you know, 5 days before it hit the headlines em they were actually saying “How are we going to best use this situation?” you know. So they were exploiting this particular situation and our national media is 100% pro-abortion you know. So we had this storm, absolute storm there was probably, personally I’ve found it like the toughest in my pro-life work you know.”
Arroyo: “Tell me about this new piece of legislation being proposed. What would it do, briefly?”
O’Domhnaill: “Well basically it would allow for abortion where there was a threat to the life of the mother em..including the threat of suicide. So we had..”
Jeanne Monahan: “Which can be broadly defined…”
O’Domhnaill: “Oh absolutely, it’s the floodgates scenario. So we had the equivalent of a congressional hearing the week before last, those of us who, I’m a psychiatrist. Six psychiatrists testified before the committee and all 6 including the people on the pro-abortion/ pro-choice side, they all said you know abortion is not a treatment for mental illness. That abortion is definitely not a treatment for suicidality because it increases the risk of suicide.”
Monahan: “It’s a trauma. It further impacts the trauma.”
O’Domhnaill: “Exactly. Yeah. So there’s this crazy scenario where we’re going to legislate based on this Supreme Court decision, now let’s bring the experts and ask them how do we do this? And all the experts say actually, you don’t do this, you know. So the em obviously, to stop this we went to the people. And it’s always been the case that’s what we do. When government starts doing what the people don’t want we bring the people to the streets and em last Saturday we’ve fantastic Youth Defence, the em, which is really the engine of the pro-life movement back home, em brought those people out onto the street.”
[Later]
Arroyo: “Tell me are you, how aware are the Irish of the pro-life movement here in the United States and the gains that they have seen?”
O’Domhnaill: “We’ve been working actually hand-in-hand with the pro-life movement in America for you know, the last 20 years. I mean it is no exaggeration to say I have more friends in America than I have back home and I hope I’m not too much of a reject you know. It’s a case of em..an awful lot of Americans like for example, our organisation has em full-time voluntary workers and invariably one or two of them in the, our central office are American, you know. So they come over for a year and stay for 4 or 5 years we can’t get rid of them and em then they marry someone em but no it’s em…there’s this constant exchange and you know we’re at the stage now where you know that youth organisation that we founded 20 years ago, 21 years ago. And now say my eldest son is now working in that organisation, in the office. We’ve actually brought a pro-life movement across a generation which hasn’t happened before. So we’ve twenty years of pro-life work experience before our Roe v Wade and that’s why we know it has to be stopped. It’s rowing back on a Roe v Wade thing. It can take 40,50, 60 years. Stopping it in the first place, that’s what it’s about. So Youth Defence and the Life Institute are out there saying this has to be stopped.”
[Later]
Arroyo: “I wanna wrap with a question which I asked our last panel. The greatest hope you see and the greatest challenge ahead for this movement and for your cause, first in Ireland and then in the United States?”
O’Domhnaill: “Obviously, the biggest challenge we face is to hold the line, you know.”
Arroyo: “What was the reaction to the march last week? You didn’t tell us. Edna Kenny is now saying what..Enda. I keep saying Edna like Dame Edna. Edna Kenny says what?”
O’Domhnaill: “He has this, he has this serious worry because with a turnout like that all of a sudden it sends a shiver through the government, the main party in government em Fine Gael. And an awful lot of their TDs, which would be like their senators, congressmen whatever, they’re turning around and saying hang on you know..”
Arroyo: “Maybe we should shelve this baby..?”
O’Domhnaill: “This is something which should be kicked down the road a bit. There’s a serious risk in the marginal constituencies we could take a serious beating because the the the people who went to the rally and all the people out there beyond who are on LinkedIn, facebook and all that kind of stuff, they’re all signing a pledge. The pro-life pledge is they will not vote ever for anyone who votes for legislation to legalise abortion, right. So you’re talking about you know say in, if you look at the 30,000. That probably represents about 600,000 votes, right. That is an enormous, an enormous power surge em and if you take it away from one party, they’re finished you know. And they know it. So he’s hoping just to keep his party together.”
By highlighting suicide in abortion legislation is the state legitimising it?
HE (above) decided,
University College Dublin professor of psychiatry Kevin Malone in a letter (top) to Jerry Buttimer TD [who is chairing the Oireachtas hearings on the matter] suggests:
Such legislation could accelerate suicide rates in younger men in Ireland (where the real problem lies).
Following on from last night’s ‘Prime Time’, Mick Wallace released a statement today which included the following:
I confirm that I am in the process of making a complaint on the matter to the Standards in Public Office Commission under Section 4 of the Standards in Public Office Act 2001.
I will also be requesting that the Data Protection Commissioner investigate any possible breach of the Data Protection legislation, the basis for the Minister’s allegation, the circumstances surrounding the seeking and providing of any personal data to the Minister in preparation for the Prime Time debate, and the identity and role of all persons involved.
Minister for Justice Alan Shatter subsequently released a statement which did not address Deputy Wallace’s accusation that the Minister’s actions constituted an abuse of power.
From whom did Minister Shatter receive his evidence of Mick Wallace’s alleged penalty points infringement?
Political corruption sleuth Elaine Byrne, now based in Australia, has been tweeting about Alan Shatter’s insider knowledge of Mick Wallace’s motoring indiscretions revealed on Prime Time last night.
In summary:
1. The Minister for Justice abused his position of power by disclosing on national TV the details of a Garda discretionary decision
2. That the Minister did so to make a political point because the individual concerned was a politician is quite frankly, disgraceful.
