Ronan Mullen: Independent Senator. Liberal?

national | politics / elections | opinion/analysis

Saturday March 26, 2011 16:28

by Christopher Isherwood

Questions about Senator Ronan Mullens position on important issues

There is not one word on his literature about his position on abortion, civil partnership, his opposition to gay rights in general, his opposition to sex education. Not one word about religious values. No reference to his support for the Iona Institute and the right wing economic policies of its director David Quinn (overspending on public services was the problem)

His Brief CV makes no mention of his period as sec to archbishop Connell. He is only for adult stem cell research etc

You would think he was a soft-hearted liberal!

When will he come out as a catholic extremist?

The bill to provide civil partnerships and increased rights for same-sex couples was passed by the Oireachtas but only after an extraordinarily ill-tempered debate in the Seanad. Independent Senator Ronan Mullen was accused of filibustering in a bid to block the bill after speaking at length throughout the debate.

On one proposed amendment alone, he spoke for more than 30 minutes and quoted the soliloquy from Hamlet! He denied filibustering but said he had a "higher duty" to speak to his concerns over the bill.

Other senators, however, accused him of being "a bully" and a "dictator" and making a "mockery" of the Seanad. Fine Gael senator Eugene Regan, meanwhile, said one of the amendments proposed by opponents of the bill simply boiled down to "a hostility towards gay people".

Mullen was sec to Archbishop Connell at the time that child abuse was being hidden by the Catholic Church. Mullen was aware of this but spun lies on behalf of his Fuhrer. Vincent Browne uncovered a mendacious statement issued by Mullen where he denied that money was paid by the RCC in the Payne case. The Ryan Report shows that money was paid.

Mullen also complained about RTEs coverage of clerical child abuse:

"WHAT can you get for 23p a day?" Anyone listening to RTE radio these days will recognise the station's campaign to justify its TV licence fee.

To the sound of an apple being munched, we are told all about RTE's good deeds - from concert orchestras to news on the web. The message is clear: if we're getting all this for 23p a day we're doing fairly well. But are we? Watching last week's Prime Time special about the Christian Brothers and sexual abuse in Australia, Canada and Ireland, I had reason to wonder at the way our fee is being spent.

It's also hard to be optimistic about RTE's future coverage of sex abuse. We've seen this imbalance before. States of Fear was justly criticised for failing to give historical context or balanced overview, but these criticisms were never accepted by Raftery and her team. The evidence from Prime Time was that they intend to give us more of the same.

Some days an apple seems like better value.
http://the-knitter.blogspot.com/2001/12/wounds-of-abuse....html