We managed to avoid yet another abortion row during the election campaign because the party leaders decided the issue should be sidelined. If, however, certain people get elected to the Seanad it is probable we will never hear the end of the matter. Long standing antiabortion campaigner William Binchy is running for the NUI: his campaign colleague, FF's Des Hanafin, is meanwhile hoping to regain the seat he lost on the Labour panel.
Binchy's literature has only two references to the "unborn" but he is known as a one-issue man and if he and Hanafin make it, the new government - and particularly Ministers John O'Donoghue at Justice and Dermot Ahern at Social Welfare and Family, who have sympathies in that direction - will face endless demands for referendums.