Ireland needs “strong social values” to respond to the current challenging times, Senator Rónán Mullen said at the launch of his European election campaign in Galway last night.
Lack of trust meant Irish politics had a "credibility gap the size of the Gap of Dunloe", the Independent legislator from east Galway said at a function in the Ardilaun Hotel.
Conviction politics
Mr Mullen, who is standing in the Midlands North West constituency, criticised a "slavish adherence to authority" in the current political culture in Ireland, with "too many of our elected representatives" abandoning "critical analysis of policy to vote again and again against their own convictions and local community".
Mr Mullen said he was neither a “sycophantic Europhile” nor a “Eurosceptic”, and where the EU worked for Ireland he would support it.
However, as someone who had voted against the first Lisbon Treaty and for the second, he said he was very critical of any attempt by Europe to overstep boundaries and he opposed the “increasing intolerant push to harmonise values on certain issues” relating to “life, education and the family . . . An example of the creep into areas of national sovereignty can be seen in the ‘Lunacek report’, a non-binding but influential report, published this week, where under the guise of promoting common values, the European Parliament proposed to undermine member state autonomy in areas such as education,” he said.
This report “poses a real risk to debate and free speech on important social issues”, he said.
As a “farmer’s son from Ahascragh” and someone whose relatives had benefited from the European Social Fund, he said there was much to be valued in Ireland’s EU membership.
Mr Mullen said that he stood up for the right of conscientious objection by doctors to abortion when on the Irish parliamentary delegation to the Council of Europe.
'Wide audience'
He said that the election offered a platform to "promote issues to a wide audience", referring to his Seanad focus on "the protection of life, the needs of families, communities and vulnerable people, both old and young" and issues such as unemployment and emigration.
Several hundred people attended the event, some travelling from Donegal, Offaly and Westmeath.
