‘No issue’ with McNamara’s deviation from party line

CLARE Labour Party TD Michael McNamara says he was mistaken when he voted against the Government in the early hours of last Thursday morning but he still wants the issue he deviated from his party on to be addressed.

Deputy McNamara voted against the Government, siding with 18 other TDs, who called for a provision to be made in legislation to allow for a termination of pregnancy in cases of fatal foetal abnormality or inevitable miscarriages.

The incident caused some excitement at the time but on Wednesday both the TD and the party said the matter had been resolved and there is no issue.
A party spokesman told The Clare Champion there was no issue with the Clare TD. “He made a genuine mistake and he subsequently voted for the Bill. That’s the end of the matter,” he said.

Mr McNamara said he had not realised that the amendment could have made the Bill unconstitutional.

“At that time, I didn’t have time to appreciate the potential legal consequences of the decision, if it had resulted in a change to the legislation. While the Bill, as passed, would, in my opinion, almost certainly be found to be constitutional if referred to the Supreme Court under Article 26, the constitutionality of a clause including fatal foetal abnormalities would be slightly less certain. Under Article 26, an entire Bill is upheld or struck down. Therefore, to have included the amendment would have been a mistake. So my vote was a mistake.”

However, he is still very much of the view that the issue, which led to him voting against his party colleagues, does need to be tackled. “I want to see the issue addressed but accept that it could not be part of this bill and I voted with the Government as further amendments on the controversial abortion legislation were debated on Thursday evening, night and into Friday morning.”

The manner in which the Dáil operates has been under fire over the last week following the ‘Lapgate’ incident and that TDs debating as significant an issue as abortion did so after drinking alcohol.

Mr McNamara was also critical of how the parliament works but, in his case, it was because of the time of day. “I believe that TDs should not have been voting at five o’clock in the morning unless legislation was urgently required, as in the IBRC liquidation. Relegating matters to the small hours of the morning, 18 hours after the Dáil sitting began, is hardly indicative of a parliament that takes rights, or even legislating, seriously.”

He also claimed that there are serious restrictions on backbenchers such as himself.
“Government backbench TDs seeking to press the Taoiseach or Tánaiste on legislative issues can only do so in the Order of Business where their questions are highly circumscribed and the answers given are frequently so general as to be meaningless.”