Sir, – In your Seanad report of July 18th (“Seanad ‘made case for abolition’ in blocking debate with Gilmore”) Jimmy Walsh quoted Senator Katherine Zappone as saying a lone member of the public shouted “shame on you” from the gallery. I must make a correction for you see, I was that member of the public.
Senator Zappone has misinterpreted what I was protesting against. It was not so much the obstructionist tactics of the Opposition that frustrated me; it was the decision not to hold a debate on the constitutional convention at all in the Seanad. Are the Opposition truly to blame for this? The Government may have lost patience with them but they could have set aside far more time for the debate to begin with. The issue was being debated only for one hour in the Seanad. A modest amendment to extend the debate to two hours was rejected early in the day, prompting the Opposition to do what they did.
Whether or not they were right to do so is one thing, but it’s certainly a cause for concern that the debate in the Seanad didn’t happen. Senators had prepared some fine amendments, many of them from Senator Zappone, and none of them would be discussed now. I think it’s more of an indictment of the narrow attitude with which the Government has formulated this convention, with minimal parliamentary discussion and no public consultation. That is why I stood up and shouted, “This is my future! You should all be ashamed of yourselves!” before volunteering to leave the gallery. – Yours, etc,