Archive for the ‘General Election 2011’ Category
Leaders Questions Mayday; Clare Daly Challenges Enda Kenny on Abortion Bill
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=slFyQDyrcHY&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DslFyQDyrcHY
The leader of backward Irish Vatiban (Fine Gael) defends women-hating laws; pregnant women beware!
Deputy Kenny is out of step with popular opinion :
http://tomasoflatharta.com/2013/02/11/pope-benedicts-resignation-brings-end-to-paradoxical-papacy/
What is in the new government bill on abortion? Will it make the current position better or worse?
In 2012 Clare Daly proposed a bill in Dáil Éireann to implement the Supreme Court X Case Judgment of 1992 – later endorsed in two referendums held in 1992 and 2002 – which would have legalised Abortion in Ireland in very limited circumstances.
Now the government has come forward with a new bill – following mass outrage at the death in a Galway hospital of Savita Halappanavar, who was denied an abortion which would probably have saved her life.
http://tomasoflatharta.com/2012/11/21/savitas-law/
The government is also under pressure from the European Court of Human Rights after the A, B, and C cases; the court instructed the Dublin government to legislate on abortion.
It is necessary, at this early stage, to carefully look at the contents of the government bill, and propose alternatives which will take forward the pro-choice cause in Ireland.
The statement below, issued by pro-choice TD’s Clare Daly and Joan Collins, is a contribution to this effort.
Clare Daly TD, Joan Collins TD
Statement – May1, 2013 – immediate release
Needs of despairing women ignored – lives will be put at risk
Expert Group recommendations ignored
Commenting on the government’s draft bill on abortion, Clare Daly TD and Joan Collins TD called for changes to deal with shortcomings in the Bill:
Clare Daly said:
“Today, May Day, when women have fought for their rights as workers, we are still fighting for our rights as women. I welcome the publication of the government’s proposals for minimal legislation on abortion, but it contains restrictions that will continue to put women’s lives at risk.
There are neither medical nor social grounds for requiring the approval of three consultants to agree to abortion for a despairing woman, driven towards suicide because of unwanted pregnancy. A psychiatric emergency is no different to a medical emergency and is treated as such by clinicians. If one of the government’s panel of three says ‘no’, it is up to the woman to push for an appeal to another three. Most women would give up at the possibility of a second refusal and be driven further into despair, or forced overseas – if they can afford it. This must change: no more than two medical practitioners should be required to approve abortion for suicidal women.
Women who cannot face these obstacles, and induce abortion themselves, are threatened with 14 years in prison. They would be branded as criminals if they obtain abortions in Ireland – yet the government is happy to see it done in Liverpool. The ‘chilling factor’ of criminalisation referred to by the European Court of Human Rights has been transferred from doctors to women. This hypocrisy must end: abortion must be decriminalised.”
Joan Collins said:
“The government has ignored Art 6.4.1 of its own Expert Group Report, which said that two doctors was enough to make a clinical decision on the risks to a woman’s life because of physical or mental health condition. They have also ignored the views of the majority, who support legislation for the X case, and organisations including SIPTU, Unite the Union, the National Women’s Council of Ireland and the Union of Students in Ireland – representing hundreds of thousands of people. They have called for no more than two medical practitioners as sufficient to approve abortion.
This Bill is a political compromise with Fine Gael backbenchers and the anti-abortion minority, which will compromise women’s lives rather than meet women’s needs. It also reinforces the distinction between a woman’s life and her health and welfare – where a woman who could be permanently incapacitated by pregnancy cannot get an abortion. The 8th Amendment must be repealed and women’s health needs and choices provided for.
We will be examining this draft Bill in the coming days and will table amendments to remove the unnecessary restrictions contained in it.”
Ireland: What’s left after the ULA? | Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
Henry Silke on the decline of the ULA.
Clare Daly Questions Taoiseach Enda Kenny on Abortion
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=b-gyBoO7KcM&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Db-gyBoO7KcM
No comment necessary
Dail Rushes Property Tax on to Statute Book – PickPocket Law Ridiculed by Clare Daly TD
A short sharp speech
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HQDViPGe05c
United Left established within the ULA
From the Cedar Lounge 3rd March 2013
“With the new opinion poll there was a timely agreement yesterday in Dublin by the supporters of Joan Collins TD (including the Dublin 12 ULA Branch), Clare Daly TD, Cllr. Declan Bree (Sligo) and most of the active ULA nonaligned to form a new platform or organisation within the ULA, ‘United Left’.
The main focus of United Left will be the need for a new, broad based non sectarian party to represent and organise working people and to build the United Left and the wider alliance as a preparation for such a party. United Left bases itself on the founding statement of the ULA.
It also aims to develop a strategy to build further by involving other left organisations and groups either as part of the United Left or the wider alliance.
United Left will register as a ‘party’ for electoral purposes.
It is planned to have a public launch of United Left and a series of local public meetings in the near future.”
Legislate for X – Shocking Leak of HSE Halappanavar Report
Joan Collins TD, Clare Daly TD Statement –13 Feb 2013 –
Legislate for X –Now No restrictions that make abortion unavailable
Today’s leaked report of the draft HSE investigation into the death of Savita Halappanavar contains shocking confirmation of what was reported at the time of her death –and more. Commenting on the leaks in the press Joan Collins said
“The first person to see this report should have been Praveen Halappanavar. We hope this has happened and that he has not read about it in the papers. It is unacceptable that a report which was apparently concluded six weeks ago should be delayed for another ten days before being published. The leaks from this report confirm that a dying fetus was given priority over an increasing risk to Savita’s life. It says that even before her request for an abortion, ‘the clinical situation indicated a significant and increasing risk to the mother’; and that ‘… septic shock could have been avoided by an earlier termination knowing that –without a termination –the prognosis for the fetus and potentially for the patient was poor”
Yet a consultant is quoted as saying “our hands were tied” by the current legal situation as long as there was a fetal heartbeat and no immediate risk to the woman’s life.” Clare Daly said: “Whatever the interpretation of current guidelines by the doctors concerned, this must never happen again. There must be legislation so that doctors can perform abortions when pregnancy puts a woman’s life at risk. And as the Chief Justice said in the X Case ruling, that risk should not have to be ‘immediate or inevitable’ in order for abortion to be approved. The forthcoming legislation must not have restrictions so that abortion is unavailable in practice. The opinion of no more than two medical practitioners should be sufficient to unds of physical risk to life ocal practitioners should be sufficient to approve abortion –either on grounds of physical risk to life or risk of suicide. Abortion should be available throughout the country –as near as possible to women’s homes –and not restricted to just a few hospitals. And abortion should be available if a fetus has an abnormality that means it cannot survive.
Legislation for X might have saved Savita’s life. But what her death shows is that abortion must be available if a pregnancy puts a woman’s health at risk. There is overwhelming popular support for abortion in such situations, as well as for rape and incest, or fatal fetal abnormality. The most recent poll shows 60% support for ‘a woman’s right to choose’. Abortion in these circumstances, which we support, requires the repeal of Art 40.3.3 of the Constitution.
Savita’s unnecessary death must not be the fate of other women. There must be no more delays in legislating to the X case. Once that’s in place we will be campaigning for the repeal of Art 40.3.3 and the introduction of
free, safe, legal abortion in Ireland.
Labour at the next election ......10 seats?
I know we're probably a few years away from an election but ..... with Labour now sliding in the polls , Paddy Healy made an interesting Comment on the recent Sunday Business Post Red C poll stating
When the Labour party vote declined to 10.4% in the 1997 GE following the Spring/Bruton/De Rossa government , it retained 17 of 33 seats.
“The Promissory Note Deal – A Three Card Trick” OR “another step forward towards the day when we can finally face forward as a people”
A friend of this blog has unearthed a gem from the Irish Labour Party Presently participating in a coalition government with Fine Gael, under the leadership of Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore :
This is what the Labour Party are sending to their councillors today. I’d like to say its delusional but they are not that this stupid, although they obviously think some of their elected officials are. Fair play to Cian O’Ceallachain for publishing this stuff, going against the grain is never easy no matter how stupid it is…
“Farewell to Anglo!
Last night’s legislation brings an end to Anglo Irish Bank and the Irish Nationwide Building Society. These two institutions, names that will live on in ignominy, are forever associated with the recklessness and greed of a tiny clique that brought this country to the edge of financial ruin. These banks, the people who ran them and the golden circle around them were at the very roots of the crisis that has caused so much distress to the Irish people.In liquidating this institution, we are doing what should have been done on the night of the blanket bank guarantee.
This is another step forward towards the day when we can finally face forward as a people, when the past can finally recede into the distance and when Ireland and the Irish people can see the future that they truly deserve”
Commenting on this one writer suggested
Whoever wrote that is wasted in the Labour Party. Should be out there writing sci-fi
Our Literary Prize Panel agreed unanimously.
Words may fail you, so we present an alternative view from the blog of United Left Alliance TD Joan Collins :
Now you see it, now you don’t. Nobody should be fooled by the government spin on the deal negotiated with the ECB on the debts run up by Anglo Irish and Irish Nationwide. Not a cent of the almost €35 billion poured into these two insolvent banks has been written down. This deal seals the fact that these debts have been fully socialised, that is transferred as a burden onto the Irish people.
Web Link :
Promissory Note Deal Is A Three Card Trick
The Irish government fast-tracked a new law through the Dáil, perhaps scared of a legal case taken by David Hall :
Once upon a time a failed private bank, under criminal investigation, got an IOU/promissory note from the State to pay off its bondholders. In 2011, we voted in a government that promised to tackle this blatant injustice. Last week they defended a legal challenge against the promissory notes. Then, hours before the Supreme Court could hear the appeal, in the dead of night, they rammed emergency legislation through the Dail that transfers those debts from the IBRC/Anglo (an institution we own, and with whom we could have negotiated a write-down or even a write-off of the debt) to the European Central Bank (which is legally prohibited from writing down, or writing off any of this debt – even if they wanted to. Which they don’t.)
So the ‘soft’, legally-suspect, promissory note debts, were turned into legally-sound, ‘hard’, non-negotiable, sovereign debt – without a single cent of it being written off.
In other words, the people paid to represent us have shafted us, and our children and grandchildren. But they still call it a ‘deal’ – kind of like an upgrade, to sit closer to the captain on a Slave Ship. Section 17 of the legislation now gives the Minister for Finance unprecedented powers to restructure these promissory notes with the Central Bank – without oversight and without a vote in the Dail. The terms of this ‘deal’ are being discussed now at: http://www.thejournal.ie/promissory-notes-michael-noonan-786949-Feb2013/
From this we will learn about ‘savings’ on the interest we’ll pay on this illegitimate debt, and how much icing sugar they intend to sprinkle over the shit sandwich they’ll be force-feeding us over the next few decades.
A delusional Jellyfish Spineless Labour Party has confused surrender and victory.
Gilmore’s outfit is going down in the opinion polls :
Labour Pains in 2013 Opinion Polls
Labour’s Way is now the Gormley-Green Way -
http://tomasoflatharta.com/2011/03/10/the-february-25-general-election-changed-something-in-ireland/
Any bets on how low the Labour Party and Fine Gael will dip in the next opinion polls and real elections?
We need an anti-coalition and anti-capitalist left which has the backbone for a fight, a physical feature absent from the jellyfish Labour Party.
X Case – Anti-abortionists restrictions must be rejected
Joan Collins TD, Clare Daly TD
Statement – 4 Feb 2013 – immediate release
Legislate for X Case
Anti-abortionists restrictions must be rejected
The delay of a memo to Cabinet regarding the forthcoming legislation on abortion shows that pressure from the anti-abortion minority must be rejected, said Clare Daly TD and Joan Collins TD.
Joan Collins said:
“The suggestion that the opinions four or five medical practitioners should be required to approve a medical treatment – in this case abortion – to remove a risk to a woman’s life, is an attempt to make abortion inaccessible in practise.
The idea that a despairing woman or girl, driven to consider suicide as a means to escape the trauma of continuing a pregnancy she truly cannot face, would be able or willing to go through four or five medical assessments is a cruel denial of the reality of such a situation. Confronted with such restrictions, any woman who could afford it would travel abroad for an abortion. Poorer women, girls, or those too ill to travel would face obstructions that could drive them over the edge.”
Clare Daly went on:
“A maximum of two medical practitioners, and in an emergency one – should be enough to approve abortion when it is necessary to remove a threat to a woman’s life. And such a threat, as the Chief Justice said in X Case ruling, should not need to be ‘immediate or inevitable’ in order to approve an abortion. The anti-abortion minority must not be allowed continue to impose other restrictions – which could put women’s lives at risk.
Delays in the introduction of legislation for X – which is very restrictive and would only apply in the few instances where lives are threatened – shows the need to repeal Art 40.3.3 from the Constitution to make abortion an issue of medical treatment to be decided by a woman in consultation with her doctor.”
—————————
More on the Government’s Foot-Dragging Here :
What Do We Not Talk About When We Do Not Talk About Abortion?
http://www.claredaly.ie/what-do-we-not-talk-about-when-we-do-not-talk-about-abortion/#more-1333
if it were finally accepted that the old Church-State complex was no longer the dominant force in Ireland, the way would be paved for a very awkward discussion; what should be the dominant ideology in Ireland? How should the state relate to class and gender? Who should hold power and, more importantly, who should have power taken away from them?
And so we get Lucinda Creighton, Enda Kenny, and many other politicians who ordinarily are full supporters of free-choice (as long as it is the limited neo-liberal kind of free choice in the market place) clamouring to strictly control this debate, to not pass legislation for as long as possible, and, whenever they do finally pass legislation, to make sure it is as limited in scope as possible. This practiced silence and inactivity is a conscious strategy, based on the idea that by not talking about abortion, they might be able to also prevent us all from talking about all these other issues, of power, class and sex.
