Sir Mary van Lieshout, through her frequent articles in The Irish Times, is a well known representative of Oxfam, which seeks support from the Irish public in alleviating poverty in poor countries. While many Irish people will happily support her organisation in this work, I would imagine that many will also find it difficult to take the condescending lecture which she offered to the Irish electorate in her piece on the recent election (June 14th).
Ms van Lieshout is particularly upset with the electorate's apparent lack of enthusiasm for the directives of the UN Population Conference in Cairo, to which our political representatives Michael Kitt and Brendan Howl in committed the Irish State. She is quite annoyed with Mary Hanafin for suggesting that one factor which may have contributed to Niamh Bhreathnach's defeat was her enthusiasm in promoting those directives through her sex education programme.
This programme seems to be suffering something of a setback since it was announced, and this may be partly related to the growing awareness of the role of International Planned Parenthood in providing material for it. Many people will be aware that one of the key objectives of IPPF is the promotion of abortion availability worldwide, and will know of its influence on the Cairo agenda.
One feature of the election which gave Ms van Lieshout reason for optimism was the lack of success of candidates who put themselves forward on a "family values" platform. I find it difficult to understand how somebody who seeks the support of the Irish public for Oxfam could manifest such a partisan view of the democratic process. She may have much to learn from Ruairi Quinn, who acknowledged soon after the election that the Labour Party needed to begin listening to the people in a way that it may not have been doing for some time.
It would appear that there is still some way to go before the majority of Irish parents are prepared to adopt directives from a feminist-driven population conference as a basis for developing a sex education programme for their children. - Yours, etc.,
Tirellan Heights,
Galway