Sabina Higgins cannot speak as a private citizen

Dear Editor, Sabina Higgins is not a private citizen, she is the wife of the President of Ireland and therefore everything she does and says must be viewed as a reflection on the office of the president. To express an opinion which falls on either side of an issue that will most likely be the topic of a constitutional referendum, is completely inappropriate and I believe it is unprecedented.

Martin McAleese is known to have worked quietly to reach out to both sides of the political divide in Northern Ireland while his wife was in office as the President. He did this without fanfare, out of the public or media glare, and without affecting his wife’s positon.

It seems to me that with the Higgins’ presidency we have unwittingly voted in a couple as a dual President. For the first time the President’s spouse is included in the President’s list of engagements and the President’s spokesperson is contacting radio stations to clarify his wife’s remarks.

Whatever your own opinion may be on abortion and the repeal of the Eighth Amendment, surely we can all agree that senior public figures cannot speak publicly off the top of their heads on an incredibly sensitive and contentious issue such as ‘fatal foetal abnormalities’?

Yours etc.,

Nuala McInerney,

Douglas,

Cork.