MICHEÁL’S HISTORIC STANCE AN ACT OF RAW POLITICAL COURAGE

MICHEÁL Martin’s speech to a largely empty Dáil, watched by only a handful in the public gallery, had a sense nonetheless of the historic about it yesterday.

A leader of Fianna Fáil was putting aside pragmatic partypolitical calculations – what some would call ‘playing the percentages’ – in order to take a risk for a different kind of Irish society.

Agree with his position or not, Mr Martin’s speech was an act of raw political courage.

It was also an intensely personal revelatory moment, with a humbling sense of suppressed emotion.

He is a father who has lost two children and is intensely private about family matters.

His sincerity can be in no doubt.

His newly declared stance is one which is almost guaranteed to cause convulsions in his own tribe, and which will inevitably result in some of Fianna Fáil’s long-term supporters vowing ‘never again’.

It is no secret that Fianna Fáil enjoys its strongest support with voters aged over 65.

And this is the cohort that dovetails exactly with firmest adherence to the Catholic Church and deepest opposition to removal of the ‘Pro-Life Amendment’ of 1983.

That referendum passed by two-to-one, and it was Fianna Fáil’s wording that was inserted, despite Garret FitzGerald of Fine Gael being Taoiseach at the time. For many Fianna Fáil members it is a venerated party victory and a touchstone of its traditions.

It is also a proof of the movement’s continued and comforting conservatism.

To many of these, Mr Martin’s action yesterday – even though only expressing a personal view – will be violently anathema.

The former Minister for Health had held the line on the abortion law, with its dire threatened punishments, in days gone by.

Interviewed many years ago for this newspaper, he spoke of Fianna Fáil as a pro-life party, as if there were dark forces ranged against the light. And yesterday he admitted: ‘Over the years I have been on the record as being against a significant change in our abortion laws.’

Only a week before Christmas, Mr Martin was asked about terminations in the case of incest and rape on the Kildare radio station KFM and answered that these were not simple matters for Yes and No answers.

He also referred to a woman he knew, born after rape, who became angry at any suggestion she should not have had a right to life.

His position now is frank and unambiguous, favouring repeal and more, backing no-quibble abortions in the first 12 weeks: ‘I support the idea of a timebased cut-off near the end of the first trimester.

‘Beyond this, I believe we should make provision for cases of fatal foetal abnormality and serious threats to the health of the mother.’

Many in Ireland might have expected to be visited by aliens before they would hear a Fianna Fáil leader declare support for abortion – but there it is.

Remember it was Jack Lynch who referred to putting contraceptives on the ‘long finger’, and Charles Haughey who, in making them available only under prescription to married couples, spoke of ‘an Irish solution to an Irish problem’.

The risk exists in staking out new ground, but Micheál Martin has, at least, left that party streak of hypocrisy and political cynicism firmly behind.