Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Some people already need to be reminded that the citizens' assembly is not being called to consider the repeal of the eighth amendment but to consider the eighth amendment. I presume this will mean equal time will be given to the side that holds the view that we should see how the eighth amendment should be kept, what measures are needed to give proper effect to it - for example, should our pregnancy counselling be far more proactive in discouraging abortion - as a human rights issue to protect everyone's right to life in the country and so on. This is about looking at the issues from all sides.

The fact that some of us do not know whether we should be discussing the citizens' assembly or the abortion issue is indicative of precisely why we ought to be discussing this issue here. One way or the other, we will have to come back to a full discussion of all of the dimensions of this complex issue in these Houses.

I expressed certain concerns to the Minister of State earlier but he did not respond to any of the concerns I expressed. They included the conduct of selection of members of the Constitutional Convention last time around, what steps would be taken to ensure that it is not a self-selecting situation and the need to ensure transparency. It is important that the means by which each member of the assembly is to be sourced, invited and selected can be known in a transparent fashion.

Senator Buttimer had much to say about how genuine people were at the Constitutional Convention. I have no problem saying they were all nice people. I have no problem saying they were all out to consider the issues as best they could. Certainly, I would recommend the Grand Hotel in Malahide to anyone - one could not imagine a better facility. However, the fact is that this was a very expensive non-representative sample of people, an expensive opinion poll among a non-representative sample of people. That is what the assembly is going to be as well. The only mitigating factor was that a certain amount of consideration and debate about the issues took place with certain experts.

Senator Buttimer said, wrongly, that everyone was happy with the content of the academic panels. There were disputes about the alleged tendentious nature of some of the papers put before us. There was a major issue about how little time was given to discussion of some serious issues. I tried to get certain amendments put to the floor and the chairman simply ruled them out. Whether that was him acting in good faith or simply his whim, no one can ever know. The fact is it was not possible to discuss issues in any depth. We have not been told what kind of depth is going to be given to discussion of the issues of the citizens' assembly, how many times it is going to meet, how long it is going to meet for, how frequently those meetings will take place and whether there will be more meetings than the number of meetings of the Constitutional Convention. That is why Senator McDowell questions about the cost, as well as everything else, are so apposite. There were major problems with the Constitutional Convention.

Senator Buttimer referred rather selectively to the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and its blueprint. The ICCL is certainly an organisation with skin in the game in that it seeks to advance abortion. It has a distorted concept of human rights. Senator Buttimer did not refer to the fact those involved in the council are seeking, as part of their agenda, for any recommendation from the citizens' assembly to be automatically put to the people. Obviously, they have no interest in any deliberation taking place.