SKETCH:"Ignore the emotional blackmail." That was the opening line at yesterday's final press conference held by groups advocating a No vote in the children's rights referendum.
The main speaker was to talk about forced adoption. She was very emotional. It was difficult to listen to her – not because of what she was saying but because she was so obviously in pain.
Doris Dempsey, who was born in Ireland, spoke at considerable length of her experience in England 35 years ago. She became upset as she recalled, in minute detail, her difficult childhood and subsequent marriage.
She had a son but the marriage broke up and she was left to bring her son up on her own. She was young and couldn’t cope. Her child was taken into care but she visited him weekly over the years.
It was a long story, hard to follow at times as she told of getting a job as a civil servant while she continued to have problems with the authorities looking after her child.
Then they told her they were going to take away her “parental rights”. She went to court and represented herself and won her case. She spoke with love and pride of how her son is now a university graduate and a father.
“I thought I’d left that all behind me,” she said, “but I see this amendment now . . . I’m horrified and traumatised that they would do this in Ireland. This is forced adoption.”
She was grateful to have no children or grandchildren in Ireland “to be taken from me under this amendment”. Except her child wasn’t taken away from her. The courts ruled in her favour. One reporter asked her gently to confirm this. She did.
No emotional blackmail, as promised from the No camp, only a restrained message yesterday. They wanted to look at it coolly and clinically.
They want control of our children. They want to take them away without their parents’ consent and put them up for adoption.
That’s forced adoption. (In anticipation of this, adoption agencies have moved in here and are ready for business.) They want forced vaccination.
They want forced contraception. They want to undermine families by giving legal rights to teenagers that will set them in direct conflict with their parents.
They are keeping those rights secret until after the children’s referendum, which is being deliberately rushed before the people in advance of the budget.
They are brainwashing citizens to surrender their parental rights because they want more power over Irish families.
So. Who are “they”?
Richard Greene, leader of the Christian Solidarity Party, explained yesterday during a press conference by groups advocating a No vote.
“Every single party in the Dáil is supporting this – this UN agenda, this EU agenda from where we got the austerity.”
“They” comprise every elected representative in Dáil Éireann (except for Mattie McGrath), along with the UN and the EU. All gunning for Ireland’s cherished family unit, apparently.
Either that’s one helluva big agenda, or one helluva big conspiracy theory.
Which is why he believes it will take a miracle for his side to prevail. But he is hopeful, nonetheless.
“I’m a person who believes in miracles.”
Faced with the might of the Yes campaign, Greene has an uphill struggle in his attempts to get the constitutional amendment rejected.
“We are the only registered political party that is fighting this. Look what we’re up against. . .”
Not forgetting “the children’s rights organisations [which] have been given vast sums of money to advance this agenda”.
There were more campaigners outside Leinster House. Citizens for a No Vote were holding a vigil for the children who died in State care.
Back in Buswells Hotel, Richard Greene said one of the reasons the referendum was being rushed through was because “it was rumoured” the children’s allowance is going to be cut by €40. This referendum is going to give the politicians – who gave us the bank bailout – a say in running families.
“If you wouldn’t trust these politicians with your money, my God, please, please, do not entrust your children to them.”
And the alternative is?
