Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I would like to address the issue of the committee processes first because in many ways the process dictated much that followed, and one can only really understand the content of the committee in the light of the processes. As I have said before, I believe that the committee failed to check against its own majority bias and that, as a result, a whole swathe of the relevant issues went unscrutinised. There were problems with the scope of our inquiries and our willingness to look at all the issues and not just some issues. People have talked about the choice of witnesses, but also among those witnesses sometimes there was the conflation of expert testimony and a whole lot of personal opinion. As I have often said, the time allocated for questioning was hugely problematic, given the life-or-death nature of the issues. Although I acknowledge that on a grace-and-favour basis I was sometimes afforded some leeway, I think it was a problem for everyone and completely inappropriate, given the issues at hand. The extraordinary imbalance in the list of invited guests in favour of abortion was the problem from the start and was pointed out by me and others. With the greatest of respect to Senator Ned O'Sullivan, to whom I have listened over the years, including in 2013, and whose statement to the effect that while he was, unfortunately, unable to be here, he listened to all the proceedings I fully accept, one thing he could not have heard or been a party to were the closed proceedings. It was then, at the beginning of this process, that I found it extremely difficult to get the committee to accept that we had been given a wider mandate than the committee was willing to admit, and there was much discussion about that. The problem arose because the abortion-supporting majority on the committee did not see it as necessary or desirable to hear expert testimony on issues such as whether, as has been claimed, the eighth amendment contributed to Ireland's having a significantly lower than average abortion rate and to the saving of thousands of lives; the experience of families who believe that the lives of some of their loved ones have been saved by the eighth amendment; or the evolution of abortion culture in countries in which abortion has been legalised. The Chairman did not point out to the committee the dangers of this imbalance or propose measures to remedy the situation.

Another issue was the human rights case for the eighth amendment. I pleaded with the committee to have someone from the Attorney General's office before the committee to outline this human rights case and defend the status quo. It was an obvious request but the committee completely disregarded it. Of course, it did so democratically using its majority but, in response to what Deputy Rabbitte has said, I appeal to her to continue to seek to hear the voices that were excluded from the committee right from the get-go. I proposed several names who would have articulated an expert pro-life perspective, but this was rejected, even though the credentials of these people were excellent. I made it clear at all times that it was not the job of the pro-life minority on the committee to secure a list of experts who would ensure that all issues were examined thoroughly. That was the responsibility of the Chairman, supported by the secretariat, and I believe that responsibility was not met. An analysis of the invited speakers and the recommendations they made shows a clear ideological preference for legalised abortion among the vast majority. When the committee pre-emptively voted to recommend that the eighth amendment be removed or changed without waiting to hear from all invited speakers, much less a balanced ticket of speakers, there was no opposition from the Chairman on the grounds that this was manifestly inappropriate. The Chairman has repeatedly defended the committee's decision, despite its being an objectively hasty, ill-considered and prejudicial move. In response to what Deputy Rabbitte said, it was not just that the decision was premature; it was prejudicial. It caused other people to lose faith in the process. It was only when Deputy McGrath and I drew public attention to the biased attitudes and processes within the committee which we believed, and still believe, are there, that the Chairman, backed up by the secretariat, made belated attempts to invite a small number, a token number, of pro-life voices. It should be noted that the number of such people by then proposed was small and tokenistic and would in no way have rectified the imbalance complained of. It is significant that one of the newly invited speakers had earlier been proposed to the committee but that the Chairman, backed up by the secretariat, did not appear to have investigated that person's credentials before removing them from the list. A second invited speaker, from the group Both Lives Matter, had previously been refused on the basis that advocacy groups were supposedly not to be invited. There was therefore a catalogue of failure in trying to bring us the broadest range of credible evidence on this life and death issue. There was the bizarre spectacle of the Chairman publicly defending the committee and admitting not even what Deputy Rabbitte is, interestingly and remarkably, the only person on the committee to acknowledge, that is, that there is a problem in taking a decision before one has heard all the evidence, something that is very apparent to most reasonable people, while the secretariat in the background was running around trying to get a few extra pro-life speakers. It seemed like a damage-limitation exercise.

There has been an effort in the Seanad Chamber and here today and on other days to hold up this committee as a model of impartiality, with Deputy Noone being a scrupulously impartial Chairman. For the record, the Chairman knows well that it gives me no pleasure to criticise aspects of her chairing, but I would have no integrity if I did not say that I have thought that tweeting on this issue, as has been done, was inappropriate. I feel that defending the committee's processes, even in recent days on TV with comments to the effect that most of the witnesses were focused on women's health, does a disservice to those of us who oppose abortion but believe in the right of women to health as a constitutional and natural human right. The Chairman therefore erred in offering so robust a public defence, although I have never believed she ought to have no view on the matters at hand. I was contacted by a person on the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly who said that according to Chatham House rules, he could not disclose what was said at the meeting referred to by Deputy Mattie McGrath. However, he asked how could the Chairman of this committee be independent because he heard so much from her at the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly meeting. I said in response that I did not know whether the Chairman is supposed to be independent because she certainly had voted on the previous occasion and it was not my awareness that she was supposed to have no view on the matters at hand. However, I do think there was a lack of facilitation of impartiality by her defending the committee's processes so robustly. I do not think that was her role. I revisit this because there has been an attempt to sanitise this committee's very odd choices and processes, not least the decision to recommend against keeping the eighth amendment completely before all the evidence had been heard.

Another thing I have found surreal is that some of the people presenting as experts before this committee have, frankly, been involved in taking people's lives in other jurisdictions. When one thinks about it, it is not normal in these Houses to have people before us as experts who have been in the business of taking people's lives. I know some Members of these Houses may have been in the position of taking people's lives but they generally deny that they were ever involved in such organisations. That is an aside.