David Quinn
George Soros Declan Ganley hit public consciousness with a bang during the Lisbon Treaty referendum of June 2008. He was one of the leaders of the campaign against it and he established Libertas as his campaigning organisation. It spent a lot of money on outdoor advertising.
Ganley was immediately hit with a blizzard of questions about the source of his funding. How much of it was foreign? Was it in breach of the Electoral Act which limits funding for political campaigns to €2,500 in a year from Irish donors, and to zero from foreign donors?
The Standards in Public Office Commission (‘SIPO’ for short), pursued Ganley to see if he was compliant with the law. RTE and The Irish Times took a particular interest. They made sure the story was big and they pursued it to the bitter end. In the end it was established that Ganley and Libertas were compliant with the law and always had been.
The Irish media, which barked long and loudly at Ganley, would justifiably say they were acting in the public interest. As founder and head of The Iona Institute, I also get asked on a fairly regular basis by journalists whether Iona’s funding is compliant with the law. The answer is, it is. If it was not, it would be a big story and Iona would be pursued by politicians, by journalists, and, no doubt, by the law itself.
It is a completely different story, however, if you are a pro-choice group. Then you can receive money from anywhere you like, you can break the law and the media watchdogs will barely growl, let alone bark or bite.
Causes
Three major pro-choice groups have between them received half a million dollars from an overseas foundation called ‘Open Society’. Open Society was founded and is funded by the fabulously wealthy Hungarian-born, US-based George Soros, who funds numerous causes, including campaigns to liberalise drug laws and abortion laws.
The three organisations here in Ireland are the Abortion Rights Campaign, the Irish Family Planning Association and Amnesty International Ireland.
News of the funding came to light last year when documents from Open Society were leaked. They revealed that the three organisations had received the funds for the express purpose of overturning our pro-life law.
The document said: “With one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world, a win there [Ireland] could impact other strongly Catholic countries in Europe, such as Poland, and provide much needed proof that change is possible, even in highly conservative places.”
How could it be argued that this intent was not political? How could it be argued that the funding was not in breach of the law on two counts, when it was far above €2,500 and it was from a foreign source?
News of the funding made it into The Irish Independent, but barely into the rest of the media. It was treated in about the same way as news of a minor celebrity dodging their tax liabilities – of passing interest only.
In the event, and because members of the public complained, the Abortion Rights Campaign had to hand back the money. The Irish Family Planning Association is still in discussions with SIPO. Initially, Amnesty Ireland seemed to wriggle off the hook by describing its campaign against the 8th Amendment not as a political campaign, but as a ‘human rights’ one.
SIPO has now told Amnesty that the Soros funding is in breach of the law and to hand it back. Incredibly, Amnesty is refusing to do so.
Its Chief Executive, Colm O’Gorman said in a statement (released on the day the media were distracted by the breakthrough in the Brexit negotiations), that Amnesty had been asked “to comply with a law that violates human rights, and we can’t do that”.
Obligations
O’Gorman said: “Ireland is targeting organisations purely for their work on human rights and equality issues. We believe this law contravenes Ireland’s obligations under international human rights law, including the rights to freedom of association and expression.”
He added: “International human rights law is clear that there should be no distinction between the sources of funding, whether domestic, foreign or international.”
With that, he placed Amnesty above Irish law. Amnesty get to decide what law to obey and which to disobey based on their own magisterial interpretation of ‘human rights’.
There are, of course, times when your conscience will compel you to disobey the law. In Sweden, for example, doctors and midwives are compelled to perform abortions, and no pro-life doctor or nurse could possibly do that. But laws about funding are hardly on a par with this as a conscience matter.
To date, the Irish media have continued to treat this story as one of minor importance. Our politicians are not barking either. It might well be the case that the Electoral Act is too draconian when it comes to funding – in fact, I think it is – but breaking the law is a serious, and seriously newsworthy matter.
This is especially so when the issue is abortion, the funding amounts to the over $300,000 between the three organisations, the money has come from someone as major as George Soros, and the organisation refusing to obey the law is an important as Amnesty International.
If pro-life groups were in receipt of this kind of money from an American billionaire, there is no question that it would be treated as a major story. RTE and the rest of the media would be all over it. The pro-life groups would be fielding calls all day. There would be demands from politicians for accountability. Demands for legal penalties would be made. The boards of the organisations would be under immense pressure.
But the media are refusing to bark at Amnesty. The politicians are almost entirely silent. Our media like to complain of fake news, failing all the while to see that media bias is the functional equivalent of fake news. By not covering the Amnesty funding story properly, our media are engaged in what amounts to fake news and it simply makes their bias more unmistakable than ever.
David Quinn’s new book is How we killed God (and other tales of modern Ireland).