Vote No, and prevent farce turning to tragedy

Bertie Ahern isn't running scared of Michael Noonan's challenge to a debate on abortion, writes Dick Walsh

Bertie Ahern isn't running scared of Michael Noonan's challenge to a debate on abortion, writes Dick Walsh. It's just that he doesn't think abortion, the subject of the referendum in which we're embroiled, is a political issue.

You have Dermot Ahern's word for it. Dermot, you may have forgotten, was the colleague whom Bertie sent to London to find out what, if anything, Ray Burke was up to. He came back empty-handed. Nothing to declare.

But that was all right because Bertie, who'd been up every tree in north Dublin, came back empty-handed too. So Burke became Minister for Foreign Affairs and lasted all of three months before leaving to play a leading role in the Flood tribunal.

And Bertie admitted to Mary Harney that he'd had his suspicions all along. Which meant that Dermot's trip to London had been a wild goose chase. And this, in turn, made him the laughing stock of Leinster House.

READ MORE

Another minister would have shown signs of resentment, but not Dermot. He carried on, po-faced as ever, as if chasing geese was all in a day's work for ministers. And now he's back, trying to convince the electorate that Bertie has lived with the issue - abortion, not sleaze - for the last five years and knows more about it than anyone else.

The only reason Bertie doesn't want to debate abortion with Michael Noonan, Ruairí Quinn, Liz McManus or Dana, Rosemary Scallon, is that he doesn't wish to "politicise" it. Which, when you think about it, is distinctly odd. Here we are, with a constitutional change and a complicated Bill, rolled into one; being put to the electorate, in a referendum, in such a way as to make it impossible to change a jot or tittle of either without another referendum. And the Taoiseach, its only begetter, doesn't want it to be treated as a political issue.

Not only does he refuse to discuss it with Noonan on television, when he had the opportunity he didn't explain himself to the Dáil. During the month-long passage of the relevant legislation, he didn't speak once.

This politician who, according to his acolyte Dermot, had lived with the issue for five years, and knows more about it than anyone else, said nothing.

He has made the odd intervention since, but not what you'd expect from someone who wants to avoid the rough and tumble of party politics. Only last week he accused Liz McManus and her colleagues in Labour of belonging to a pro-abortion party.

A No vote, Bertie said, and Dermot echoed, would lead to a liberal abortion regime. No ifs, no buts, no argument. No allowance for the doubts of many citizens or the confusion of many more. No recognition that to reject the Government's proposals would be to leave us with things as they've been for the last 10 years, during which there wasn't a floodgate in sight, open or shut.

But if those who call for a No vote are being dismissed as "political," how are we to describe Fianna Fáil's trumpeted mobilisation of 45,000 activists drawn from 3,000 units around the State? Their leaders confirm that they'll be combing the country for Yes votes before pressing on to the general election. So it seems safe to say that what they're about is a crusade.

But, while the Catholic bishops are bending over sideways to support the Yes campaign, they still acknowledge that Catholics may also vote No, with an informed conscience of course - though you'll have to strain your ears to get the message.

What the real crusaders are after is certainty in a regime which must not, will not, cannot be changed. They don't trust politicians or judges any more than they trust women.

But they're convinced they've found a way to frustrate them, as you could tell from William Binchy's interview on the News at One on Tuesday.

It's done by locking the law into the Constitution. So that even if the entire Oireachtas wished to change the Act - say, to reduce the penalty for aiding or procuring an abortion from 12 to 10 years - it wouldn't be able to do so without holding another referendum.

And if the present, confusing and confused package is passed by the electorate on Wednesday week, March 6th, no one need look to the Supreme Court for a saving remedy or humane interpretation.

The court offended the Yes brigade with its judgment in the X case. Now it will not be among the safeguards upon which we can depend. As Binchy described how the powers of the Oireachtas and the Supreme Court were to be curbed, you could hear keys being fitted into well-oiled locks. One more move - on March 6th -- and the gates will be slammed tight, shut and bolted.

The crusaders have had their awkward moments - uncertainty about the information booklet, disagreement with the sensible people in the Referendum Commission, criticism by Church of Ireland clergy, John Neill and Gordon Linney, a disastrously lop-sided Prime Time.

On Prime Time, Dermot Ahern conveyed the impression that the Government's package had been designed to the specifications of some (not all) who call themselves "Pro-Life."

I was reminded of the 1992 referendum and Jack Jones's commentaries, both in The Irish Times and in his book In Your Opinion (TownHouse), when he wryly observed how a close study of polls showed that many were so confused by the wording that the votes they cast contradicted their intentions and opinions.

"It was apparent," he wrote, "that the democratic process could be potentially prejudiced when many members of the electorate did not understand the nuances about which they were being asked to vote."

My own view is that, in this case, it's best to vote No if we are to prevent farce turning to tragedy.