BEN SCALLAN: Taoiseach Micheál Martin wants a Citizens’ Assembly on Irish neutrality – despite previously saying that Citizens’ Assemblies are often just mouthpieces for “the loudest lobby group of the day” and not reflective of public opinion.
Pointless and unwarranted.
A commitment to establish a Citizens’ Assembly on education was a core feature of the recent general election manifesto of the Green Party. This proposal was based on its belief that there is a fundamental “need to re-evaluate the outcomes of education” and to bring about “structural changes” at all levels of our education […]
The very first session of the newly convened Citizens Assembly to consider Gender Equality (February 15/16,2020) doesn’t leave any doubt about the point of the exercise. Previous assemblies were accused of manipulating participants in various ways to bring them to pre-determined conclusions. However, it would be hard to point at anything so blatantly biased as […]
The Citizens’ Assembly on gender equality met just over a week ago. Regrettably, the session on “The family in the constitution and law”, was a prolonged attack on marriage and its special status in the Constitution. Prof. Siobhan Mullaly from NUI Galway, who spoke as an expert, should have explained why marriage deserves constitutional protection. […]
I can hear you lot, down the back, already. “Well of course, McGuirk, you don’t like the citizen’s assembly because it finally overturned centuries of torture and oppression and gave Irish women the right to fully control their own bodies. Stop being so sour. The Citizen’s Assembly is great”. Of course, the idea that the […]