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PR: YD Step Up Campaign Against Tainiste
11.11.2003
On November 27th, the Council of Ministers of the European Union is to vote on a proposal to decide whether or not to fund embryonic stem cell research. Tainiste Mary Harney will cast Irelands vote. Should she oppose this proposal Ireland will form a "blocking minority" with Italy, Germany and Austria and this research program will be rejected. Unfortunately Mary Harney has stated that she sees no reason not to accept this proposal, despite having assured us that "Ireland cannot and will not be involved in experimentation involving human embryos"
In response to this latest threat to unborn human life, Youth Defence have launched a series of activities to inform the public about this situation and to highlight the audacity of the Tainiste to fund a practice which is illegal in our own country.
Three weeks ago we began the first phase of our campaign which took the form of a daily peaceful protest outside the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. These demonstrations have taken place every lunchtime weekday, and will continue until the day of the vote.
We moved into the second phase of our campaign on the 2nd of November. This phase involved leafleting and canvassing the constituency of Mary Harney with a specially designed leaflet. This leaflet educated the people as to the horror of embryo research and also encouraged people to call the Tainste's office and object to this practice and to demand that she rejects this EU proposal. We are pleased to announce that this has been highly successful and we have recorded over 600 calls to date to Ms Harney's office.
With three weeks passed Mary Harney still did not give any indication that she would reconsider her position and we are now being forced to launch the third phase. This will involve a concentrated leaflet drop and canvass by our regional volunteers around the constituencies of other prominent Progressive Democrat TD's including, Tim O Malley Limerick, Noel Grealish Galway, and Tom Parlon Laois/Offaly, and public notices in the local constituency papers. We were disappointed that Mary Harney's party colleagues remained silent on this crucial issue and chose not to consult their constituents in any decision to support the Tainiste's actions. These leaflets are encouraging people to call their PD representative and ask them to demand Mary Harney rejects this proposal.
We are still awaiting a statement from the Tainiste in relation to this and our activities will continue and escalate in the future should she continue to remain silent. We have more activities planned for this campaign and we will be forced to execute them should Ms Harney give no indication that she will reject this program.
To this end we are holding a press conference on Thursday 13th November in the Buswells Hotel Press Room at 12:30pm. Afterwards we will be staging our daily protest on the offices of the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment on Kildare Street.
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