A chara, - I have long cherished the constitutional limit which governed the houses of the Oireachtas and the Presidency. I have also believed that the public utterances of the President were submitted to and cleared beforehand by the office of the Taoiseach. If that were so, it is no longer the practice, as correspondence with both offices has confirmed to me. The President does not even use the Government Information Service in her public broadsides and has engaged - at whose expense? - the services of a public relations consultant who is known to me and whose track record is impressive.
Initially her pronouncements were directed towards the internal affairs of Northern Ireland, the province of her birth. Now she is directing the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland and its duties and its future role. It is a truism that voters deserve what they get but the current President of Ireland needs to be publicly reminded that her office, her actions and her public utterances are subject to the will of the people, as represented by the Oireachtas, and that her role is purely symbolic.
At the forthcoming conference on November 11th, the PDs could speak for the people were they publicly to remind the President of the dignity of her office and its constitutional restraints. Essentially, all her future public utterances should be submitted for clearance and approval to the office of the Taoiseach and the Government Information Service. Such was the case with previous presidents from Douglas Hyde onwards. - Yours, etc.,
Michael Mac Coisdealbh, Upper Kilmacud Road, Goatstown, Dublin 14.
