Summary: <br> <a href="https://twitter.com/XSovietNews" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener external" data-wpel-link="external">Sarah Hurst</a> is a journalist who has been reporting on Russia for thirty years – her interview starts at 15:00.<br> <br> <br> <br> <a href="https://blog.hereshow.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Sarah-Hurst-scaled.jpg" data-wpel-link="internal"></a><br> <br> <br> *****<br> <br> <br> <br> Sharon Keogan is an independent member of Seanad Éireann, she’s one of those independent politicians who discovered her deeply-held belief in independent politics, just after she discovered that she had failed to get a nomination to run as a Fianna Fáil candidate, despite being on that party’s national executive.<br> <br> <br> <br> She’s made a career of gaining publicity off the back of baiting public outrage with ludicrous statements targeting vulnerable members of society, such as when she said that <a href="https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/election-2020/election-candidate-defends-call-for-discussion-on-whether-children-with-special-needs-should-be-microchipped-38907890.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener external" data-wpel-link="external">disabled children should be microchipped</a>. She’s cute enough to couch her trolling in terms of concern, while dog-whistling to the lowest instincts in society.<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> She hit the news again recently when she was criticised for <a href="https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2022/0421/1293497-surrogacy-committee/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener external" data-wpel-link="external">saying to witnesses</a> before the Joint Committee on International Surrogacy – a married gay couple who had adopted a child via surrogacy – that surrogacy was “harmful, exploitative and unethical” and “not in the best interest of the child“. She went on, “I don’t believe it is everyone’s right to have a child. It is a privilege to give birth.“<br> <br> <br> <br> The Committee chair, Sinn Féin’s Kathleen Funchion suspended the meeting after Senator Lynn Ruane complained that a personal attack on witnesses was not appropriate, and asked for an apology, <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/sharon-keogan-resigns-from-committee-i-no-longer-feel-safe-1.4863531" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener external" data-wpel-link="external">which Keogan refused</a>.<br> <br> <br> <br> Keogan later resigned from the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, in an email with the subject line “<a href="https://www.rte.ie/news/politics/2022/0427/1294723-senator-sharon-keogan/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener external" data-wpel-link="external">Unsafe Working Environment/ Resignation</a>”, she wrote “I no longer feel safe or protected as a member of the committee and have made this difficult decision as a result of that.”<br> <br> <br> <br> I don’t want to talk about surrogacy here, I more want to talk about Keogan’s excuse, particularly this guff about being safe or protected as a member of the committee – she is clearly trying to draw a link between perfectly valid criticism of her – and her not being safe. And let’s be clear here, Senator Keogan is not behind the door when it comes to dishing it out, the incident started when she made a personalised attack, not on a political opponent, but on witnesses who came to a private committee meeting to tell their personal story. A political opponent criticised her for doing that, and she resigned in a huff saying that she wasn’t safe because of that criticism. Leinster House is not exactly the place you go if you want to avoid hearing nonsense on stilts, but even by those standards, the notion that she might be in physical danger in literally the most secure building in the country is really a special kind of stupid.<br> <br> <br> <br> Except she didn’t quite say that, she left herself a little escape hatch. She said that she didn’t feel safe, leaving open the possibility that she actually was safe,
