Sir, - At the recent AGM of the Irish Council of Civil Liberties, of which I am a member, a report was read and adopted from the Joint Chairpersons, which contained a number of personal attacks on those who appear to be considered opponents of the ICCL, including the Minister for Justice. Not unnaturally and quite properly, the Minister for Justice subsequently rejected these attacks on himself.
My deep concern arises because of my conviction that the work of the ICCL is essential to our future liberty. Consequently, there are very good practical reasons why organisations, such as the ICCL, should not attack or denigrate the persona or probity of Government Ministers, apart altogether from issues of truth, justice and fair play.
In a populist democracy such as ours, the great political objective is to conciliate the wills of others to our point of view; we wish them to think as we think and to share the values we hold dear. Such a process requires that we treat those who oppose us with respect, honouring and defending their right to hold opinions profoundly different to ours, even though we may be fundamentally opposed to those opinions. If, instead of honouring our opponents, we attack and abuse them, we can be certain that they will not change their minds and, perhaps more importantly, neither will their supporters. (If one holds a politician in contempt, then perforce one must also hold those who voted for them in contempt, as well!)
Given that the Joint Chairpersons declined to modify their report, it follows that they were not seeking to conciliate the Minister for Justice and the Fianna Fail and Progressive Democratic Parties who support him. The Joint Chairpersons' actions, if not their actual policy was to confirm this important segment of the population in their opposition to the ICCL and the reforms we seek!
I am aware that there is considerable frustration in the ICCL at the slow rate of progress in winning substantial reforms from our "right wing" government. (Properly described the government of Ireland is conservative, communalist and authoritarian, rather than "right wing".) Unfortunately, we are largely responsible for the problem, because we have failed to conciliate our opponents to our view, preferring to hold them up to public contempt and contumely.
On Friday, June 12th, we are sponsoring jointly, with The Irish Times, a conference on incorporating the European Convention of Human Rights into Irish domestic law. Perhaps we should begin that conference with an apology for our past error in attacking the persona and probity of the Minister for Justice and (by extension) his supporters in Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democratic parties, so that by thus honouring them, we may begin the process of conciliating these many honourable persons to our point of view. - Yours, etc.,
Myles Tierney,
Grange Road, Dublin 16.