Paul Keenan
Senator Rónán Mullen has rejected calls for the forthcoming citizens’ assembly on the abortion to be held behind closed doors.
Speaking to The Irish Catholic this week amid the latest row over the assembly – whether or not to reveal the identities of its members – Senator Mullen said that, while he had always objected to the very idea of an assembly to advise on the question of holding a referendum on abortion, “now that it is in place, transparency is better than secrecy”.
Senator Mullen was responding to calls made by both Fine Gael’s Kate O’Connell and Anti-Austerity Alliance–People Before Profit TD Ruth Coppinger for the identities of the assembly members to be withheld to prevent members being pressurised.
Senator Mullen said further that regardless of the final profile of the assembly, the key issue is that it hears the full facts on abortion.
“The assembly should not be a lobbying exercise,” he said, “but it is also wrong for the assembly to get a partial representation of the facts.”
Experience
Insisting that chairperson Judge Mary Laffoy had a responsibility to “ensure all issues are combed over very thoroughly”, Senator Mullen added that such examination must include “the international experience of abortion”.
“For example,” he said, “how it has been introduced for disability only to see whole categories of disabled disappear, for example those with Down Syndrome. [And] the means of abortion must also be communicated.”
Restating his original objection to the citizens’ assembly – “a fig leaf designed to convince us there is a groundswell of support for a referendum on the Eighth Amendment” – Senator Mullen repeated that “the proper place for this to be dealt with is in the Dáil and the Seanad. It is not as though we’ve had massive productivity from the Dáil on legislation.
“I don’t know of any other situation where a proposal to take away a human right of the most vulnerable in society was dealt with in this way.”