Civil servants are to demand changes to a code of standards and behaviour that prohibits them from engaging in public debate on political issues.
The code, introduced by then minister for finance Charlie McCreevy in 2004, says civil servants above the level of clerical officer may not write letters to newspapers or contribute to radio or television programmes concerning politics unless required to do so as part of their official duties.
Delegates to the Public Service Executive Union (PSEU) annual conference in Killarney yesterday said the code was an infringement of their constitutional right to free speech. They backed a motion from the union's revenue branch instructing the PSEU executive to "vigorously pursue an amendment to the code to rectify the position".
Revenue delegate Tom Fanthom, who proposed the motion, said the word "politics" covered a broad range. A civil servant could be held to be in breach of the code if he or she made a comment at a meeting of their local residents' association to discuss a proposed incinerator, for example.
Similarly, they could find themselves in breach by discussing the education system at a meeting of the parents' association of their local school.
Mr Fanthom said the original Civil Service Code, published just after the Civil War, contained a ban on any political activity by civil servants, including "public statements or comments on political topics". The understanding, he said, was that this ban related exclusively to party politics.
However, the Civil Service Code of Standards and Behaviour, introduced in 2004, had put a "whole new slant" on it, he said. The specific ban on writing letters to newspapers and contributing to broadcast media was "the most damning part of all".
It illustrated "quite clearly that someone, somewhere sat down and thought about this and decided that you as civil servants should not have the same entitlement to free speech that is enjoyed by every other free citizen of this country", he said.
Mr Fanthom said he did not accept assurances from management that the relevant provision of the code would not be rigidly enforced. "That is like asking us to accept that we are second-class citizens on the understanding that, as a concession, we won't be treated as second-class citizens. What a deal that is!"
Several speakers supported Mr Fanthom's stance. Education and science branch delegate Rhona McSweeney said she would always refrain from commenting on matters to do with the department in which she worked. "But why should we be silenced on other issues, when to be a citizen, to be a member of society, is politics by virtue of existence?
"I have major problems with the fact that because I am a civil servant I can't write to the newspapers about the issue of, say, breastfeeding being very good for the prevention of asthma; I can't write with my views about bin charges; I can't write about the fact that I was troubled by the parade on Easter Sunday which had just our Army and no mention of the labour movement, which played such a huge part in 1916 through the Irish Citizens' Army," she said, to applause from the floor.
PSEU assistant general secretary Phyllis Behan said the Civil Service unions had attempted over the past year to secure a relaxation of the current restrictions on political activity by members. Management, however, had rejected the unions' position. She said the code specifically said there was "no intention to change existing practice". She asked that the motion be remitted. Delegates rejected this and insisted that it be put to a vote.
