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Parents rights under attack from Government Committee Press release sent to all TDs, Senators and the Irish media on April 25th 2005 The National Mens Council of Ireland are dismayed at the treatment that is being meted out to citizens who made presentations to the All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution. Reports are circulating that show that the Committee is denying the existence and disregarding the views of a large number of the sovereign power in this country - the people themselves. The Irish Constitution was given to the citizens so that the people could rely on its provisions to protect them from state interference in their private lives, specifically in regards to how parents raise their children. This affects anyone who wants to get Married and have a family life and who wants to bring their children up according to their faith. It is ominous when word is leaked from the committee into the media only about groups who made representations asking that these protections should be removed. An analysis of the groups and individuals who have made representations to the committee show they fall into two distinct camps. Those who wish to retain the protections from state interference and those who wish for a 'nanny state' which is free to dictate how we raise our children and indeed remove our rights as parents to control and guide them according to our conscience. What is very interesting is that the groups who wish to remove the people's protections are all funded heavily by the state itself. In these groups the state pays their wages and expenses. They are in effect an extension of the state's bureaucracy. They cease to exist if they fail to promote the state's policies. On the other hand the groups who wish to protect the people and retain the Constitutional position on the family and the right of mothers to stay at home and look after their children are universally denied funding from the state even though they represent the vast majority. The funding by the state of groups who made submissions opposed to the Constitutional position on Marriage becomes even more bizarre and verges on treason when one reads Article 41.3 which states, "The State pledges itself to guard with special care the institution of Marriage, on which the Family is founded, and to protect it against attack." It is impossible to view the purpose of the All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution as being anything other than as a public relations exercise to create the impression that the people themselves want the state to take over their private lives! Nothing could be further from the truth and the denial by the committee of the existence of the many thousands of letters telling the state to keep out of their families adds little to their credibility. Roger
Eldridge, [To contact the NMCI click here]
Supporting information of this interference with the democratic process by the APOCC Committee can be found below and you can keep up to date with the latest developments on the Mother and Child Campaign website at www.truthtv.org TruthTV News Archive Source: Mother and Child Campaign Date: 21/04/2005 Mother and Child say Denis O¹Donovan is trying to create a smoke screen The Mother and Child Campaign, have condemned Denis O'Donovan, chairman of the All Party Oireachtas on the Constitution, for telling lies, in a vain attempt to create a smoke screen to cover up the ominous disappearance of public submissions received by the All Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution (APOCC). Mr O'Donovan has made several farcical and deliberately untruthful statements regarding submissions delivered by the Mother and Child Campaign to the offices of the APOCC. He has claimed that submissions were covered in blood and saliva and that members of the Mother and Child Campaign intimidated staff of the APOCC secretariat. The Mother and Child Campaign condemn these lies out of hand and can offer a video tape of the delivery of submissions to the APOCC offices to members of the press for viewing where it is obvious that no such intimidation took place. Please contact Niamh Ui Bhriain at 086 1729008 or Dr Sean O'Domhnaill at 087 2583779 for further details Source: Mother and Child Campaign Date: 21/04/2005 Mother and Child Campaign accuse APOCC Process of being a Farce Members of the Mother and Child Campaign, who were invited to make a public oral commission to the All Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution today, walked out of the hearing in protest having read a statement to the Committee. Members and supporters of the Mothers and Child Campaign posted, and hand-delivered, an estimated 20,000 submissions, both in written, printed and petition form, to the offices of the All Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution. Your office is only willing to acknowledge some 8,000 submissions. This is a very serious development, and one which undermines the credibility and authority of this Committee. These petitions and submissions are now State documents pertaining to the matters before this Committee, and of particular importance to those whom we have been asked to represent at these oral hearings. We have evidence a signed receipt of delivery in relation to 9,244 of said submissions and petitions. It is absolutely impossible for a group to have any faith in an Oireachtas Committee which, in a manner most ominous, cannot account for the whereabouts of public written submissions, particularly where all these submissions are in support of maintaining the integrity of our Constitution, Bunreacht na hÉireann. Our members throughout the country who have made submissions which have either not been acknowledged, or more interestingly, acknowledged and then denied, will be swearing affidavits before legal representatives today. We will not allow the voices of Irish citizens to be silenced because they do not meet the political parties¹ consensus with regard to how best to dismantle our Constitution. Dr. Sean O'Domhnaill said that, "the objectivity of this Committee was always in question, because of the language used by the APOCC in advertising for public submissions, and because of public statements made by Committee members in advance of receipt of any submissions, or holding of public hearings. The Mother and Child Campaign wish to alert the Irish people to our belief that this process is a farce, with a pre-determined outcome. The views of the Irish people are being disregarded in an unprecedented display of contempt and disrespect. We hold that in refusing to acknowledge the Irish people, this Committee has no authority." Members of the APOCC further shamed themselves by engaging in name-calling upon the departure of the Mother and Child Campaign delegation. - End - For more details contact the office on 01-8730465 |