THE VINCENT BROWNE INTERVIEW: Michael McDowell comes from a Fine Gael background. He was an office-holder in the Dublin South East constituency until he joined the Progressive Democrats in 1985. He was elected to the Dáil in 1987, defeated in 1989, elected again in 1992 and defeated again in 1997, on this last occasion by 27 votes on the final count by the Green Party candidate, John Gormley.
He was perhaps the Dáil's most outstanding TD during his two terms there, eloquent, witty at times, cruelly derisive at times, informed, diligent, intelligent.
He was loathed by Fianna Fáil, especially in the period when the Progressive Democrats were in coalition with the party from 1989 to 1992. He was out of the Dáil then, but president of the party and he used that position to "sabotage" (as Fianna Fáil saw it) the government of which his party was a partner.
On losing his seat at the last election he let it be known that he blamed Mary Harney for the bungling campaign she ran. It seemed he would never return to the party and certainly never join with "Thelma and Louise" (Mary Harney and Liz O Donnell) in electoral battle again. He has been assiduously courted by them since and considered returning to the party a few years ago, but on the basis of a set of demands which the party found unacceptable. Then he was persuaded to accept the position of Attorney General when David Byrne went to Europe as Commissioner.
But even then he seemed determined not to stand again as a PD candidate. The idea was floated that he would stand as an Independent. But three weeks ago he relented and now will be a PD candidate again in Dublin South East.
He was educated at Gonzaga College, UCD and the King's Inns. He has been a barrister for almost 30 years and, while practising full time, among the 10 most successful.
He is grandson of Eoin MacNeil, the leader of the Irish Volunteers in 1916. He is married to Niamh Brennan, and they have two sons.
VB: Why are you standing for the Progressive Democrats again given your disillusionment with the how last general election campaign was run [by Mary Harney]?
MMcD: I think we collectively lost our way in the last general election, and that probably arose from a number of things. We didn't really have a very clear and distinct manifesto until too late in the campaign, and some of it was ill prepared.
Also John Bruton had decided that the outgoing rainbow government would contest it as a single unit and, even if the Democratic Left was not required, it would be added in.
This meant that we had no opening at all to that side of the equation [i.e. the opportunity of a government with Fine Gael and Labour minus Democratic Left].
That left us in the position that our only potential partners were Fianna Fáil. In those circumstances we were just carried along in the slipstream and made a few mistakes collectively, and it was very disappointing.
VB: Had you a sense of being excluded from the decisions taken during the campaign?
MMcD: I don't really want to go back over it because I think we allowed the party come close to being annihilated by effectively bobbing around in the water between ships and not having a clear identity of our own.
VB: According to political correspondents who were writing about your intentions in the last several months, it appeared that you were definitely not going to stand for the Progressive Democrats, that you were contemplating standing as an Independent. Why was that? Why were you so reluctant to stand as a PD candidate?
MMcD: Because I didn't want a repetition of what had happened in the last campaign [in 1997].
VB: What assurances have you got that it won't happen again?
MMcD: Absolutely satisfactory assurances.
VB: You contemplated going back into the PDs a number of years ago on the basis that you would be president and you wouldn't be responsible to the party leader. Is that the way it's going to be now when you are appointed president of the party?
MMcD: No. The appointment of president which is envisaged will be one made by Mary Harney. I will have an important function in relation to reviving the party organisation, transforming it into a national political party rather than a party that is located in a few clusters of support, which it is at the moment, and in preparing its policy platform for the election. That's a role that I am very glad to have.
VB: What were the decisive issues that persuaded you to stand as a PD candidate now?
MMcD: Well, one of the things that persuaded me was Robert Molloy. He came to me and indicated that he wanted the party to prosper, that he was going to throw his lot in and he'd commit himself to another term as a PD.
VB: The likelihood is that if you are elected you will either be an opposition TD barking at the government of the day for a period of seven years or you will be a backbench TD not even barking at the government of the day. How could either of those prospects be appealing?
MMcD: Well, I don't know that that is the entire range of possibilities, but I am not going speculate on others because I am not going to trap myself by talking about my ambitions in the event of the Progressive Democrats forming part of a government.
I found on the two occasions that I was a member of Dáil Eireann that I was an effective part. I was a useful part of the House and I suppose, having done it twice before, I think I could do it again, regardless of whether luck is with us or not in relation to forming part of a government.
VB: Have you been given any assurances or indications that in the event of the PDs being part of the next government you will get a government position?
MMcD: No, and I didn't ask for one. I think any leader in the position of Mary Harney would be very foolish if they started negotiating with people on that basis.
VB: As Attorney General, you obviously took a very serious cut in income and if you are to be just a TD the cut will be even more severe. What was the cut in income you suffered by becoming Attorney general?
MMcD: It would of the order of a third.
VB: You were earning about £100,000 as Attorney General and you would have been earning £300,000 as a barrister?
MMcD: Roughly.
VB: If you are not in government or not attorney general again and just a TD, would you be a full-time TD or would you resume your Bar practice?
MMcD: When I was an Opposition TD, I was practising at the Bar as well.
VB: Is that satisfactory?
MMcD: It is more satisfactory than not practising as a barrister from my point of view. I mean, I have to learn a living. I have to participate in public life as a TD.
VB: Nonetheless, the electorate of Dublin South East will be presented with a choice effectively between a full-time TD, namely John Gormley, and you, a part-time TD, unless you are part of the government or attorney general.
MMcD: I am of the view that it is an advantage if not all TDs are full-time politicians. I have no shame about that. Full-time politicians have their advantages but part-time politicians also have theirs.
One of them is that if you have an outside source of income, whether it's a farmer or barrister or a business person, you have more independence than if you are obsessed at the prospect of losing your seat. That gives you an independence which, I think, is very important.
VB: You used to be very anti-Fianna Fáil, regarding them almost as untouchables. Now you seem very happy to be with them.
MMcD: Well, I have been very happy serving as Attorney General and I have been very happy in the company of the Cabinet I served.
VB: On the abortion issue, you were opposed to any further referendum or constitutional change and now you are the instigator of constitutional change and a change that is going to further restrict the availability of abortion to women in distressed circumstances. How do you explain that?
MMcD: Well, I don't accept that. Either this parliament or the next parliament, some parliament legislates on this issue or it doesn't.
Either we say there is no law that could be passed by parliament or there is. If you were to legislate in the present context, you'd have to come to the issue of how you would deal with the psychological threat of suicide.
If you were to enact a law to deal with that issue you would have to ask yourself: would it be containable?
I believe on mature reflection that it wouldn't be. It would be very similar to the present regime in England, and it has effectively become a semi-automatic process.
The Irish people fundamentally have to face the issue, do they want a fairly automatic entitlement to abortion in this country, or do they not? If they do, then they should take the pro-choice route and ignore the difficulties in all of that.
VB: Are you happy with a regime which would criminalise a woman for having an abortion here in circumstances in which, for instance, she was violently raped and suicidally distressed at the prospect of bringing the foetus to full term?
MMcD: I don't find the situation easy or happy at all. But the Government went through a five-year process on this. I mean, there are heart-rending situations and you have to make up your mind how you are going to deal with them.
Are you going to bring in a law, for instance, which allows anybody who claims that they have been raped access to abortion or are you going to say to the person, no, you must show you were raped?
How would that be done? Or are you going to say that you must be assessed by a panel of experts to decide whether you really were or not raped.
Really I think in the last analysis it will come down to this proposition: if you introduce exceptional grounds for a surgical abortion in Ireland, the doors swing open almost inevitably. You are not going to be able to contain it. I think that either the present proposals are accepted by the people or within five years there will be a relatively liberal abortion on demand.
VB: So it's just too bad for a woman who has been violently raped and suicidal at the prospect of bringing to full term the foetus of herviolator?
MMcD: No, that's not the case. One of the lines The Irish Times is taking in editorials is that it is hypocritical of Ireland to allow travel [for the purpose of procuring an abortion abroad], while not dealing with that issue ourselves in our own country. But I think that reasoning is faulty. Ireland is entitled to have its own laws in relation to abortion, and there isn't any hypocrisy in saying we are going to have different laws from those of states which are nearby and to which women can easily travel for abortion if they want, I don't see that it is difficult to allow travel and at the same time to have a different and more conservative regime here.
VB: What was so bad about the situation since the X case? Why not leave it as it is?
MMcD: Because it all depended effectively on a very fragile consensus in the Medical Council that anybody who did engage in providing abortion in Ireland on suicide grounds was going to incur the wrath of the council. If that consensus broke down, there is effectively nothing to stop a psychiatrist and a general practitioner or surgeon establishing a clinic where you would psychiatrically assess people and carry out surgical abortions in Ireland.
VB: But it hasn't happened.
MMcD: What is to stop it happening?
VB: The fact of the matter is that, as far as we know, there have been no abortions in Ireland since the X case.
MMcD: Well, nobody has drawn it to anybody's attention, and that's probably because anybody who has done, if they have, will certainly not make it public because the Medical Council took a view different from the Supreme Court and effectively said that any doctor who engaged in suicide-related abortions would be acting unethically. That's the fundamental difference.
I think you know, being practical about it, if there is nothing in law stopping a surgeon and a psychiatrist running such a service in Ireland, and there's no legislative framework, that is an amazing absence of legislative control. I don't think, going back to what Niall McCarthy said in the Supreme Court at the time of the X case in 1992, the failure to legislate in the nine years which had intervened between the 1983 referendum and 1992 was scandalous.
VB: Moving on to the appointment of judges to the Flood tribunal, why hasn't this been done?
MMcD: It is being done, but the Flood tribunal has indicated very clearly that it is not being held up, and Mr Justice Flood indicated to me that if the charge is put against the present Government that it is holding up his tribunal that is not the case. By the way, the matter is in hand, and appointments are about to be known.
VB: When?
MMcD: In the next couple of weeks.
VB: Why weren't they appointed several months ago to enable them to read themselves into the issues they will be dealing with and hit the ground running when the new modules begin? This could have meant that the issues concerning the evidence of, say, Tom Gilmartin and Frank Dunlop could have been ventilated in public before the election.
MMcD: There never was any possibility that the Flood tribunal would have got to that stage before the election.
It is unlikely that the tribunal will publish its report on proceedings to date before April.
I can assure you of one thing - and you can check it out with the tribunal if you don't accept it from my mouth - the progress of the tribunal and its work have in no way been delayed.
VB: Have you found people to serve [on the tribunal] now?
MMcD: Yes. I believe I have.