Sir, – While I agree with the viewpoint expressed by Sabina Higgins at the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Ireland (NMBI) event last week, I believe that public comments advocating legislative and possibly constitutional change by the spouse of the head of state set a dangerous precedent ("Making women carry fatal foetal pregnancies 'an outrage', says Sabina Higgins", May 9th).
Mrs Higgins was clearly attending this event in a public capacity as the spouse of the President, as is explicitly noted by NMBI in its announcement of her attendance. She has no professional capacity to be attending an event in this area of speciality, any more than any private citizen.
Yet she is not a private citizen. While living in publicly funded accommodation, and travelling at the public’s expense at the side of the head of state, no spouse of the President can claim to be a private citizen, unless they were to choose explicitly to be so at the outset of their spouse’s term of office and to then refuse any such public invitations, except where they are related to their ongoing professional career.
The time to have chosen another, more private, role was at the start of the presidency. It is not credible to say that you are attending a public event as the spouse of the head of state but also as a private citizen.
We are all entitled to hold opinions, but we are all also expected to know when to hold those opinions to ourselves, depending on the role we are performing. – Yours, etc,
DANIEL SULLIVAN,
Marino,
Dublin 3.