Sir, – Breda O'Brien is correct when she says that the National Women's Council of Ireland seems to have "unparalleled access to the corridors of power" ("Women's council has no time for anyone unwilling to march in ideological lockstep", Opinion & Analysis, February 19th).
However, might I also draw attention to the unparalleled access which the NWCI appears to have to the opinion pages of The Irish Times?
The director of the NWCI, Orla O’Connor, was afforded opinion articles in your newspaper on two occasions in the space of just three weeks recently, on December 15th, 2021, and January 6 th, 2022, in which she outlined and then repeated the position of her organisation on the ongoing review of the abortion legislation and the controversy over the construction of the National Maternity Hospital.
Separately, Emma DeSouza, who has been employed by the NWCI since January 2021 as its “women’s leadership co-ordinator”, has become a regular columnist in The Irish Times.
In that time she has written several columns which explicitly urged support for policy positions taken by the NWCI, including a piece last November where she called for the passage of the controversial hate-crimes legislation being proposed by the Government.
On no occasion did either The Irish Times or Ms DeSouza mention that her views mirrored exactly those of her employer, the NWCI.
Can you please account for why the NWCI enjoys such extraordinary access to your opinion pages, and why women with contrary viewpoints (with the sole exception of your weekly columnist Breda O’Brien) are not represented at all? – Yours, etc,
SARAH-ANNE
CLEARY,
Strokestown,
Co Roscommon.
A chara, – When the Irishwomen’s Liberation Movement petered out after a couple of years, some of those involved went into party political activity. In a personal capacity, I was puzzled but never held it against women such as Gemma Hussey, Monica Barnes or Nuala Fennell that they felt they could best pursue the cause in Fine Gael. It was obvious that they continued to be omitted feminists and that was what mattered.
In that spirit – and again only expressing a personal view – I believe that the National Women’s Council was wrong to omit women from any political party from addressing the rally on March 5th. – Yours, etc,
MÁIRÍN de BURCA,
Marino,
Dublin 3.