IN ONE of the first rows in the Seanad election campaign, outgoing senators David Norris and Shane Ross have received a full apology from supporters of a Trinity College senior lecturer, Dr Sean Barrett.
Supporters of Dr Barrett, who is seeking election to the Seanad for the first time, had claimed in a letter to voters that when Trinity College "came under attack as the Universities Bill passed through the Upper House", not one of the university senators defended it.
The letter was written on June I 6th and signed by a former registrar of the Philosophical Society, Mr David Leahy, and a former president of the same society, Mr Mervyn McCullagh. But in another letter to voters, dated July 1st, the same two signatories say they "deeply regret having made this statement and we now realise it is completely untrue.
"TCD Senators Ross and Norris spoke and voted against the Bill at Second Stage. Amendments approved by the college were proposed by the TCD senators and accepted by the Government. We would like to apologise to the senators for the misleading information which we circulated in that letter," they wrote.
Having stated in the original letter that the election of Dr Barrett would put an end to the "absentee senator attitude that has been tolerated in recent years", they said in the apology that the university senators had an exemplary attendance record and were "regarded as the most effective and influential in the House".
In a letter to The Irish Times, Senator Norris said that while the offending letter had been withdrawn and an apology issued, the material had been widely disseminated and,had caused a great deal of confusion among prospective voters. He and Senator Ross had voted against the Universities Bill and he had a letter of congratulations from Dr Barrett.