THE GREEN MEP, Ms Patricia McKenna, and Labour TD, Mr Jim Kemmy, are among the 65 people, including doctors, lawyers, trade unionists and academics, who have protested against the arrest of an election candidate under the Public Order Act. Dr Peadar O'Grady was a candidate for the Socialist Workers' Party in the Dublin South East constituency. He told a press conference yesterday that on Saturday. May 17th, he was holding a meeting outside the Swan Centre in Rathmines, Dublin, giving out leaflets and addressing passersby on the relationship between politicians and big business.
He did not have loudspeaker equipment, but was arrested under "breach of the peace" provisions of the Public Order Act.
Dr O'Grady has not been charged under the Public Order Act, though he was told a file had been sent to the DPP.
"Corruption" was one of the main planks in the party's election platform, according to the SWP director of elections, Mr Kieran Allen. The party felt there was a gentleman's agreement among the major parties not to raise the matters which were disclosed by the McCracken tribunal.
He said that the Public Order Act was being used to suppress freedom of speech. It was a blatant interference by the Garda in the electoral process. "Bertie Ahern held a street meeting in Ennis on the same day. The difference was who we were and what we were talking about," he said.
According to Mr John MacDermott, of the Irish Council of Civil Liberties, when the Public Order Act was introduced the then government claimed it was needed to deal with violent or threatening behaviour by drunken gangs. However, it had been widely used on individuals engaged in political and protest activity.
Among those who have signed the protest statement are the obstetrician Dr Wendy Savage, public health doctor Dr Tom O'Connor, lawyers Mr Raymond Byrne and Ms Deirdre Tobin, sociology professor Mr Liam O'Dowd, media lecturer Mr John Horgan, trade unionists Mr Mick O'Reilly and Mr Maurice Sheehan, social worker Ms Mary Mullan and psychiatrist Dr Maurice Gervan.
Dr O'Grady is himself a child psychiatrist with a special interest in bullying. "If I'm telling children to stand up to bullying, I have to stand up to it myself," he said.