A chara, – The Citizens’ Assembly has 99 members. To be anything like representative at least seven members should come from the 300,000 Irish-born citizens living abroad. However there are none.
Absolutely no one to represent these Irish citizens, so often praised for what we are doing for our country, yet totally disenfranchised
The assembly can only be said to represent itself, that is no more than the 99 who are its members.
– Le gach dea-ghuí,
CIARÁN MAC GUILL
Clichy,
An Fhrainc.
A chara, – The Citizen’s Assembly is supposedly random and representative of the electorate.
Given that there are more than 65 member groups of the Coalition to Repeal the 8th Amendment – and presumably a fair number of anti-abortion organisations – it is unrealistic and absolutely not representative to exclude a member of the assembly for ever being a member of an advocacy group. ("Citizens' Assembly member replaced over role with pro-choice group", News, October 21st).
I can’t imagine that less than 1 per cent of the electorate, or roughly 33,000 people, have never been associated with one of these groups.
Please, if we’re going to have a “democratic” process with a representative sample of the electorate, can it at least do what it says on the tin!
– Yours, etc,
LISA KEOGH FINNEGAN
Dundrum,
Dublin 16.