Sir, - Many people feel immense compassion for Mr Bertie Ahern concerning his relationship with Ms Celia Larkin because of their own personal experience of marital breakdown. Consequently they understand the complex decisions he has to consider. So while divorce and remarriage might sound like a tidy solution to some, it may be that it is an option which presents much heartache for Mr Ahern. Others, however, find the implications of Judge Rory O'Hanlon's perspective - that is, "go back to your wife or live as a celibate" - to be utterly unrealistic. So many have not only lived through the experience of marital breakdown, but have also discovered that enforced celibacy is a grim prison within which to live one's life.
How Mr Ahern resolves his network of personal relationships is a purely private matter for him and those closest to him. But acknowledging that does not mean that the question of the public role assigned to Ms Larkin by the Taoiseach disappears. For, contrary to Fintan O'Toole's assertion (Opinion, January 8th) that "a substantial majority does not give a damn that the Taoiseach's partner has become, without the benefit of the clergy, the effective first lady", there is an issue here that is of genuine and legitimate concern to everyone in this country. That issue has to do with the problem of representation.
Mr Ahern is not an agent of the Irish people, someone who is empowered to transact business under instructions. He is our representative, both at home and abroad. The source of his power to be our representative derives from the representative institutions of this State, which are ultimately chosen by the people. As such, his representative role and function are imbued with symbolic significance - a significance that is conferred by the people on the office of Taoiseach. Neither Mr Ahern nor any other Taoiseach can usurp the will of the people by taking on that representative role and making up the extent of its symbolic significance as he goes along and expect to get away with it - even in a climate of political correctness that is conducive towards that behaviour.
In promoting Ms Larkin to the role of first lady, that is what Mr Ahern has done. In so doing he has concentrated the minds of people to consider not only the nature of representation, but also, ironically, the nature of the institution of marriage. And, contrary to the clamour of the guardians of political correctness who cite polls and statistics claiming that the majority of the people are fully supportive of the status quo concerning the Taoiseach and Ms Larkin, many people are quietly refusing to think along "politically correct" lines on this matter. - Yours, etc., Dr Noreen O'Carroll,
Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy, Dublin 6.