As someone who is interested in the processes of democracy and as a member of a group which made a pro-choice submission last year to the All-Party Committee on the Constitution in response to the Green Paper on abortion, I decided to go along to the recent public hearings by the All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution.

This experience left me wondering how public these public hearings are.

There are a number of obstacles put in the way of citizens participating in this supposedly democratic forum. First, there is no transparency about the process of selecting groups and individuals to make oral presentations at the hearings. While a staggering number of written submissions were made in response to the Green Paper, in excess of 105,000, fewer than 20 individuals (mainly members of the medical profession) and 22 organisations will participate in the hearings.

The group of which I am a member did not even receive an acknowledgment of our submission, let alone information about the process of selecting witnesses for the public hearings.

Second, the first phase of the hearings took place in the Seanad chamber in Leinster House, which meant that a pass from a local TD had to be organised. In my case, I contacted the office of one of my local politicians and, having given my address, I was told that he would have to get approval from the Captain of the Guards.

Two days later I got a telephone call telling me the pass had been organised. The following morning, when I presented myself at the gates of Leinster House, there was no pass for me and neither my local politician nor the Captain of the Guards could be located to confirm that one had been organised. After a half-hour wait, however, I was allowed in. Why can these hearings not take place in a venue where one can just walk in off the street?

I thought that problems with accommodating large numbers might be a reason for the delay in organising my pass, but when I entered that public gallery, I brought the number of observers up to four. This low attendance is astounding given the level of public interest in this issue.

I use the term "observers" deliberately because as soon as I took out my pen and notebook to take notes on the proceedings, a security guard instructed me to put them away as note-taking was forbidden in the public gallery as members of the public are admitted for observational purposes only!

Third, the briefing documents referred to in the course of the public hearings are not readily available to members of the public. They include copies of the written submissions made by the witnesses at the public hearings. At times it is difficult to follow the discussion at the hearings when one does not have access to these documents as references are repeatedly made to them.

During the lunchtime break on the day that I attended, I attempted to get a copy of these briefing documents. However, it was not until a few days later that I managed to get hold of them. Surely copies could easily be made available in the public gallery?

Disappointed at my lack of success in Kildare House, I crossed the road to Leinster House to yet again encounter difficulties in securing a pass to attend the afternoon session of the hearings. It was a repeat of the morning's ritual.

As I was waiting for my pass, a fourth barrier to public participation at the hearings became apparent. Anti-abortion protesters held a demonstration outside the gates of Leinster House.

I watched as an elderly man who had been part of the protest approached the security desk and asked for a pass to the hearings which he had organised. He was informed by the security man that because he had participated in the protest he could not be admitted.

When the anti-abortion campaigner questioned this decision, he was told that the general instruction to security guards from the superintendent of the Oireachtas was not to admit anyone who was involved in protests outside Leinster House.

In other words, when members of the public exercise the right to protest, they are denied access to so-called public hearings. Given all these obstacles, is it any wonder that there were only four people in the public gallery?