The 8th amendment(Mod warning in op)

railer201 · 22-02-2018 04:15PM

pilly wrote: »

I heard Cora Sherlock on the news at lunchtime basically trying to call a halt to the referendum by calling in question the whole process of the Citizens Assembly.

It's such a sign of panic when you're scrambling around trying desperately to prevent the public from having any say in this. When asked if surely the referendum result was the only one that matters she stuttered and stammered like mad.

It gave me comfort anyway, if the pro-lifers were sure of a win they'd be pushing for a referendum tomorrow.

Of course, throwing spanners in the works is to be expected - the CA produced a result the pro-life movement didn't want and subsequent polls have also - not to mention Paddy Power. Democracy can be such a pi$$er at times. :rolleyes:

Zubeneschamali · 22-02-2018 04:15PM

pilly wrote: »

It gave me comfort anyway, if the pro-lifers were sure of a win they'd be pushing for a referendum tomorrow.

I think Sherlock is now at the stage of scrambling to build excuses for after they lose. I wouldn't be surprised if they threaten a court case to stop the referendum, but I would be surprised i they actually go to court.

ForestFire · 22-02-2018 04:34PM

pilly wrote: »

I heard Cora Sherlock on the news at lunchtime basically trying to call a halt to the referendum by calling in question the whole process of the Citizens Assembly.

It's such a sign of panic when you're scrambling around trying desperately to prevent the public from having any say in this. When asked if surely the referendum result was the only one that matters she stuttered and stammered like mad.

It gave me comfort anyway, if the pro-lifers were sure of a win they'd be pushing for a referendum tomorrow.

I don't agree with it and I don't believe it had any material effect, but from there point of view, you can see why they would use it to their advantage.

Their belief is that the 8th should be maintained, so why would they not use any opportunity to sway opinion to their advantage (If possible).

I think the real question is why the CA was even set-up in the first place (Not particularly to do with this topic, just in general as a scapegoat for politicians)

splinter65 · 22-02-2018 04:58PM

pilly wrote: »

I heard Cora Sherlock on the news at lunchtime basically trying to call a halt to the referendum by calling in question the whole process of the Citizens Assembly.

It's such a sign of panic when you're scrambling around trying desperately to prevent the public from having any say in this. When asked if surely the referendum result was the only one that matters she stuttered and stammered like mad.

It gave me comfort anyway, if the pro-lifers were sure of a win they'd be pushing for a referendum tomorrow.

I was listening out in the kitchen and I didn’t here any stammering but the point is, would you not prefer Pilly if the referendum went ahead based on a completely unbiased report from the CA?
You do realize that if the referendum is carried now there will be endless cases to the High Court based on this ?

splinter65 · 22-02-2018 05:00PM

ForestFire wrote: »

I don't agree with it and I don't believe it had any material effect, but from there point of view, you can see why they would use it to their advantage.

Their belief is that the 8th should be maintained, so why would they not use any opportunity to sway opinion to their advantage (If possible).

I think the real question is why the CA was even set-up in the first place (Not particularly to do with this topic, just in general as a scapegoat for politicians)

My mother is adamant that it was set up to avoid politicians having to take responsibilty for desicions of a sensitive nature.

ohnonotgmail · 22-02-2018 05:00PM

splinter65 wrote: »

I was listening out in the kitchen and I didn’t here any stammering but the point is, would you not prefer Pilly if the referendum went ahead based on a completely unbiased report from the CA?
You do realize that if the referendum is carried now there will be endless cases to the High Court based on this ?

are you assuming that the report from the CA was biased?

splinter65 · 22-02-2018 05:02PM

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

are you assuming that the report from the CA was biased?

Well it’s a bit cloudy today would you not agree? Cloudy enough for it to be an issue?

pilly · 22-02-2018 05:02PM

splinter65 wrote: »

I was listening out in the kitchen and I didn’t here any stammering but the point is, would you not prefer Pilly if the referendum went ahead based on a completely unbiased report from the CA?
You do realize that if the referendum is carried now there will be endless cases to the High Court based on this ?

No I don't agree. The referendum will be voted for by all the citizens of Ireland, the CA is irrelevant to that vote.

There is no legal basis for bringing this to the high court. CA recommendations are just that, recommendations, nothing legally binding in them. In fact the Oireachtas committee were free to ignore them and they did disagree with some.

So in short, no, the referendum is needed, I don't see why either side would be afraid of the referendum.

It's the ultimate power play to try to stop the referendum happening at all and only shows weakness.

Loafing Oaf · 22-02-2018 05:03PM

splinter65 wrote: »

You do realize that if the referendum is carried now there will be endless cases to the High Court based on this ?

Yeah, the same way same-sex marriage and POLDPA were definitely going to be thrown out by the Supreme Court...

Orion · 22-02-2018 05:03PM

pilly wrote: »

I heard Cora Sherlock on the news at lunchtime basically trying to call a halt to the referendum by calling in question the whole process of the Citizens Assembly.

It's such a sign of panic when you're scrambling around trying desperately to prevent the public from having any say in this. When asked if surely the referendum result was the only one that matters she stuttered and stammered like mad.

It gave me comfort anyway, if the pro-lifers were sure of a win they'd be pushing for a referendum tomorrow.

Fianna Fáil’s Eamon Scanlon at it in the Dail too. 7 members of the CA who met last month for a totally different issue doesn't impact on CA conclusions from last year! Mattie was at it as well.

pilly · 22-02-2018 05:06PM

Orion wrote: »

Fianna Fáil’s Eamon Scanlon at it in the Dail too. 7 members of the CA who met last month for a totally different issue doesn't impact on CA conclusions from last year! Mattie was at it as well.

It's sickening but funny at the same time. Like when they were arguing over why there wasn't a person from each county on it.

What do they not get about the fact the WHOLE population will get the chance to vote. The committees aren't making any decisions.

ohnonotgmail · 22-02-2018 05:07PM

splinter65 wrote: »

Well it’s a bit cloudy today would you not agree? Cloudy enough for it to be an issue?

what does the weather have to do with anything? Besides, the CA only made recommendations that the government were free to ignore. This is just another pathetic attempt by the save the 8th crowd to stop the country advancing into the 21st century.

seamus · 22-02-2018 05:07PM

splinter65 wrote: »

You do realize that if the referendum is carried now there will be endless cases to the High Court based on this ?

People are free to waste their money with endless cases to the High Court, but since there is no legislative aspect to the CA, the High Court would continually just throw the cases out.

The outcome of a referendum is unaffected by whatever mechanism has been used to decide to hold that referendum in the first place.

Even if someone could prove that George Soros himself wrote the amendment*, that wouldn't affect the fact that it was democratically approved.

*Obviously I'm being facetious, don't go down this rabbit hole

Zubeneschamali · 22-02-2018 05:13PM

splinter65 wrote: »

You do realize that if the referendum is carried now there will be endless cases to the High Court based on this ?

I must stock up on popcorn.

Fred Swanson · 22-02-2018 05:19PM

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pilly · 22-02-2018 05:23PM

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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I think that's a more serious issue than the CA sideline, that could have an effect certainly on the wording of the referendum.

seamus · 22-02-2018 05:27PM

Fred Swanson wrote: »

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It depends.

If the Supreme Court were to uphold the High Court's interpretation, then we'd have a lot more to worry about than just abortion. It would bestow a whole load of effective rights on the unborn which would cause waves across lots of areas - from pregnancy care to social welfare, justice, marriage, housing, immigration, and so on.

Ultimately we would still end up with a proposal to repeal the eighth amendment, but the "replace" bit will likely aim to ensure that the unborn cannot be construed to have the rights of a citizen until birth or until a specific time as defined by law. Although it may not seem possible, it'll be an even more complicated debate.

It's unlikely that the Supreme Court will uphold the High Court's ruling, but if it does we can expect a whole host of madness to unfold.

If the Supreme Court strikes down the High Court's ruling, then the current referendum will stay on track.

Charmeleon · 22-02-2018 05:36PM

seamus wrote: »

People are free to waste their money with endless cases to the High Court, but since there is no legislative aspect to the CA, the High Court would continually just throw the cases out.

The outcome of a referendum is unaffected by whatever mechanism has been used to decide to hold that referendum in the first place.

Even if someone could prove that George Soros himself wrote the amendment*, that wouldn't affect the fact that it was democratically approved.

*Obviously I'm being facetious, don't go down this rabbit hole

I guess the problem will be that the CA made recommendations for the oireachtas who will draw up the proposed wording. The findings are presented to the public as being a fair and balanced look at the complex issues and the outcome as representative as possible to the diversity of opinion in the wider community.

It looks extremely bad for the supposed impartiality of the CA, first we had the statisticians looking at the selection and finding it is ‘unintentionally biased’ having excluded the more stereotypically conservative midlands and south west, now we have actual evidence of intentional skewing of the composition of the assembly.

People were led to believe they were presenting an unbiased consensus, now it looks more like a propaganda exercise. That’s bad for the democratic process itself.

Zubeneschamali · 22-02-2018 05:48PM

Charmeleon wrote: »

People were led to believe they were presenting an unbiased consensus, now it looks more like a propaganda exercise. That’s bad for the democratic process itself.

Nothing about the current scandal makes the CA look like a propaganda exercise. It looks like an employee at a private firm took a shortcut after the 8th debate was long over.

uptherebels · 22-02-2018 05:49PM

Charmeleon wrote: »

I guess the problem will be that the CA made recommendations for the oireachtas who will draw up the proposed wording. The findings are presented to the public as being a fair and balanced look at the complex issues and the outcome as representative as possible to the diversity of opinion in the wider community.

It looks extremely bad for the supposed impartiality of the CA, first we had the statisticians looking at the selection and finding it is ‘unintentionally biased’ having excluded the more stereotypically conservative midlands and south west, now we have actual evidence of intentional skewing of the composition of the assembly.

People were led to believe they were presenting an unbiased consensus, now it looks more like a propaganda exercise. That’s bad for the democratic process itself.

We had statiticans applying a selection method that by their own admission was not the one used by Red C.
From
http://https://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/an-unintended-bias-in-the-citizens-assembly-1.2908884

"They appear to have employed a hybrid method with a random component but including systematic aspects in the interests of balance."

You mean the assembly was skewed that only looked at how referendums were held in this country and didn't have any say on the abortion assembly?

"The seven people attended the assembly meeting of January 13th and 14th when it considered and voted on the manner in which referendums are held.

They did not attend or take part in earlier assembly meetings, when it considered abortion, after which an Oireachtas committee was established to consider the findings of the Citizens’ Assembly."

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/oireachtas/call-for-abortion-vote-delay-over-citizens-assembly-recruitment-1.3401905

Funny how you ignore what actually happened.

Charmeleon · 22-02-2018 05:56PM

uptherebels wrote: »

We had statiticans applying a selection method that by their own admission was not the one used by Red C.
From
http://https://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/an-unintended-bias-in-the-citizens-assembly-1.2908884

"They appear to have employed a hybrid method with a random component but including systematic aspects in the interests of balance."

You mean the assembly was skewed that only looked at how referendums were held in this country and didn't have any say on the abortion assembly?

"The seven people attended the assembly meeting of January 13th and 14th when it considered and voted on the manner in which referendums are held.

They did not attend or take part in earlier assembly meetings, when it considered abortion, after which an Oireachtas committee was established to consider the findings of the Citizens’ Assembly."

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/oireachtas/call-for-abortion-vote-delay-over-citizens-assembly-recruitment-1.3401905

Funny how you ignore what actually happened.

We don’t know what happened, only that the selection was not random but had ‘systematic aspects’ as stated in the article. What were the ‘systematic aspects’? How do we know they were interested in balance, as the article writers cautiously assume? Do we have transparency or not? We now know votes did go ahead with specially selected members.

Charmeleon · 22-02-2018 05:59PM

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

Nothing about the current scandal makes the CA look like a propaganda exercise. It looks like an employee at a private firm took a shortcut after the 8th debate was long over.

Fine, maybe it was just a bad egg, let’s have an inquiry to find out.

Billy86 · 22-02-2018 05:59PM

ForestFire wrote: »

I don't agree with it and I don't believe it had any material effect, but from there point of view, you can see why they would use it to their advantage.

Their belief is that the 8th should be maintained, so why would they not use any opportunity to sway opinion to their advantage (If possible).

Don't worry, I'm sure the usual suspects will be on here any moment now to give out about the pro-lifers attempting to silence the public from having their voice.

Any.

Moment.

Now...

seamus · 22-02-2018 06:09PM

Charmeleon wrote: »

Fine, maybe it was just a bad egg, let’s have an inquiry to find out.

It looks like an enquiry has already been carried out, the employee in question has been disciplined.

What purpose would it serve to hand over millions of euro to judges and barristers in an "enquiry"? To what end?

ohnonotgmail · 22-02-2018 06:13PM

seamus wrote: »

It looks like an enquiry has already been carried out, the employee in question has been disciplined.

What purpose would it serve to hand over millions of euro to judges and barristers in an "enquiry"? To what end?

what do you think? they just want to delay a referendum they are terrified of losing. If they lose this referendum they have no reason for existence. Iona and the likes i mean.

david75 · 22-02-2018 06:19PM

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

what do you think? they just want to delay a referendum they are terrified of losing. If they lose this referendum they have no reason for existence. Iona and the likes i mean.

Theyre already getting ready for the church running schools and the right to die debates.

Fred Swanson · 22-02-2018 06:21PM

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uptherebels · 22-02-2018 06:21PM

Charmeleon wrote: »

We don’t know what happened, only that the selection was not random but had ‘systematic aspects’ as stated in the article. What were the ‘systematic aspects’? How do we know they were interested in balance, as the article writers cautiously assume? Do we have transparency or not? We now know votes did go ahead with specially selected members.

because if you have a completely random selection there is no guarantee that it will be balanced. I.e a random selection could have returned 99 teenagers or 99 pensioners. Would that have been balanced?

So if you want balance there has to be limits and control.

People going on about no representation from counties. RED C would have looked at the country as a whole. Tha'ts why 40 out of the 99 members came from the dublin or cork, which happen to be the biggest population concentrations in the country.

Leitrim and longford don't have any because they have a combined population of approx 70,000.
If red c are looking for a middle aged divorced lawyer where are they probably going to find them?

ohnonotgmail · 22-02-2018 06:22PM

Fred Swanson wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

well that is me fecked so

ohnonotgmail · 22-02-2018 06:23PM

david75 wrote: »

Theyre already getting ready for the church running schools and the right to die debates.

i think that one is another lost cause. the second will probably take a lot longer.

The 8th amendment(Mod warning in op)

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