Some weeks ago, followers of the Irish news might recall, the Fianna Fáil TD Niall Collins was at the centre of a national controversy. Calls for his resignation as a Junior Minister came in from all directions when it emerged that over a decade ago, he had voted as a County Councillor in favour of selling land which was later purchased by his wife. To his critics, this was evidence of a tremendous conflict of interest, on the basis that his wife stood to materially and financially benefit from one of his decisions as a public representative.
There is, needless to say, much less interest in the situation surrounding the Hate Speech bill, and the husband of the Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee.
The Minister’s husband, Paul Hickey, is a senior executive at the Pharmaceutical firm, AbbVie, where he serves as director of market access.
AbbVie is one of the world’s largest manufacturer of so-called “puberty blocker” drugs which are used to slow or stop the sexual development of children who are being “transitioned” from one gender to another. Abbvie’s drug Lupron, which was originally designed to treat prostate cancer but which is also used as a puberty blocker, had €892 million dollars worth of sales in 2019, though it is hard to say exactly how much of this revenue was derived from its use in suppressing puberty in transgender children. AbbVie is, however, being investigated by the State of Texas for its role in manufacturing and promoting these drugs, which some argue are highly damaging to vulnerable children.
AbbVie is a company, in other words, which stands to lose out in the event that countries ban the use of puberty blockers in children, as has recently happened in the UK, and as is happening in many US States.
However, for such a ban to happen here, there would first have to be a debate. And the law being enacted by Minister McEntee will certainly have – and one could argue is explicitly intended to have – a chilling effect on that debate, making as it does “gender identity” a protected characteristic which it may be “hateful” to criticise.
This was first highlighted several days ago by twitter user Bronagh Hayes:
Question:
Is it a coincidence that Helen McEntee is bringing in legislation that criminalises disagreement with trans ideologies & sneaks in a new definition of ‘gender’ while her husband, Paul Hickey is Director of Market
Access & Stakeholder
Relations for pharma giant AbbVie?… pic.twitter.com/uGXkN6HNEf— BUí hAodha (@BUihAodha) June 15, 2023
It is not hard to make an argument that the Minister has a direct conflict of interest of the same nature as that which plagued her colleague Niall Collins. Her husband is not merely a run of the mill employee at AbbVie – his job is to increase market access for its drugs and products. In an Ireland where people feel afraid to criticise the provision of puberty blockers to children on foot of a hate speech bill, his company clearly stands to gain if the freezing of debate avoids restrictions being put in place which would make AbbVie’s drugs harder to access.
It should also be noted, for the sake of fairness, that a conflict of interest by itself is not disqualifying: Conflicts of interest in life are almost impossible to avoid. What should happen, when they inevitably arise, is that they are openly declared. Just today, for example, yours truly had to declare a conflict of interest in another article on Gript.ie.
The Minister can take comfort, however, from the fact that it is a racing certainty that this will not become an issue for her: In the first instance, the media are by and large already entirely onside with the idea of providing “gender affirming care” to those who demand it, regardless of age. Second, the media have what one might term “a presumption of scurrilousness” against those who raise questions of this nature against people who share their broad status in the world: The husband of an eminent politician will always get the benefit of the doubt against some heretic on social media who doesn’t share the same broad set of values as they do. There will always be a presumption that any questions are an attempt at a smear, or are “scurrilous allegations”.
Third, there is a deep reluctance in the Irish establishment to ask almost any awkward questions of pharmaceutical companies, because of the employment they provide in the first instance, and the mortal fear of sounding as if one might have “anti vaccine” sympathies in the second instance. If you wanted the classic example of a question that it would be considered disreputable to ask, then this one about the Minister’s husband and any conflict of interest is almost the perfect example.
Defenders of the Minister will note, of course, that it was not she who initiated the hate speech legislation: The proposed law began its life under the reign of Charlie Flanagan as Minister for Justice (ironically, now one of the few politicians known to harbour concerns about gender ideology). However, the specific addition of gender as a “protected characteristic” came when McEntee was Minister, which sort of nullifies that defence.
There is also, some will argue, a difference between the directness of the conflict in the Collins case and this one – Collins voted to directly sell land that, it is alleged, he knew his wife was interested in buying. In the case of the Minister and her husband, the conflict of interest is less direct: One has to construct an argument for how his employer might benefit from the law that is not immediately intuitive to the average person. But the difference in directness is arguably counterbalanced by the difference in scale: There’s a big difference between the value of a parcel of land in Limerick, and the potential value to AbbVie of years and years of sales of a controversial drug.
In any case, this case is something of a rorschach test: if you are someone who broadly trusts the Government, then this will all sound absurd. But if you are one of the growing number of people in the country who has lost, or is losing, all faith in the political establishment, then this kind of thing will serve only to confirm your existing prejudices.
Note: This piece was updated to credit Bronagh Hayes, who originally raised the issue discussed in the article.
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