Senator Sharon Keogan has resigned from the Oireachtas Committee on Children, saying she did not feel safe or protected any longer as a member of the committee.
Ms Keogan was verbally attacked by several Senators at a sitting of an Oireachtas Committee looking at surrogacy last week, which she described as “deeply personal” and unfair.
“I wish to object to this deeply personal attack on me during a public meeting and contend that the language used by the member was inflammatory, discriminatory and sought to characterise me and my contribution unfairly,” she said in a written complaint to the Chair of the Oireachtas Committee on Surrogacy, Jennifer Whitmore.
Now Senator Keogan has resigned from that Committee, saying ‘I no longer feel safe or protected as a member of the committee and have made this difficult decision as a result of that.
Her resignation draws attention to what some see as a growing trend of intolerance of differing views in Irish politics.
Many described the attacks on Senator Keogan by her fellow committee members, including Lynn Ruane and Mary Seery Kearney, as ‘bullying’. Ruane accused Ms Keogan of being bigoted, cruel and cold, charges that Keogan rejected.
Very hard to watch this obvious adult bullying of Sharon Keoghan https://t.co/0kDIcEQcKg
— Colm Parkinson (@Woolberto) April 22, 2022
“When Sharon Keogan objected, Ruane continued to shout abuse at her. When Keogan appealed to the useless acting chair, Kathleen Funchion of Sinn Féin, she in turn joined in the personalised criticism, as did Fine Gael senator Mary Seery Kearney,” commented Niamh Uí Bhriain this week.
Ms Keogan made statements on commercial surrogacy which led to her also being targeted at a private meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on International Surrogacy after the public clash. That meeting was described as “mayhem”.
Ms Keogan sought an apology from Senator Ruane and Deputy Funchion, which they declined to give.
Ms Keogan then wrote to the Oireachtas Committee on Children, chaired by Kathleen Funchion, saying she was resigning as she did not feel safe or protected any longer. She will remain on the Oireachtas Committee examining commercial surrogacy, however.
“I wish to inform you that I wish to resign my position as a member of the above Committee,” she wrote. “I will continue to sit on the Joint Committee on International Surrogacy.
“I no longer feel safe or protected as a member of the committee and have made this difficult decision as a result of that. I will offer my place to an Independent Senator from my grouping and will correspond directly with the Seanad office in order so that a Committee of Selection can be convened.”
At the surrogacy hearing, Ms Keogan said that she wholeheartedly objected to what she called the commercialisation of the human child and the regulation of women to the status of “simply incubators or wombs for hire”.
She added that she believed that surrogacy was harmful and exploitative and said she did not believe it was everyone’s right to have a child. She asked those attending the hearing why most European countries did not allow commercial surrogacy, and why the Spanish High Court described it as “commercial exploitation of the child and the biological mother.”
She added that she did not want birth mothers to be airbrushed out of the picture.