The Seanad Éireann career of Mary Robinson (Irish: ; née Bourke) began on 11 June 1969 and ended on 5 July 1989. Mary Robinson was elected for a total of seven terms as a member of (the Irish senate), always running in the Dublin University constituency. Upon leaving her seat in 1989, she did not seek re-election.
Prior to her election, Bourke had already qualified as a lawyer and been called to the Irish Bar, and had been made the Reid Professor of Law at Trinity College Dublin. Her legal work and academic career continued concurrent with her career. First elected as an independent senator, Robinson joined the Labour Party in July 1976 during her second term as senator. Robinson left the Labour Party in 1985 and thereafter worked as an independent politician.
Known for her dissenting voice, Robinson campaigned against the Catholic Church's influence on the Irish state. A self-professed liberal, her time in the is most strongly associated with her work on issues such as the legalisation of contraception, the legalisation of divorce, the establishment of women's right to sit on juries, and her involvement with the Wood Quay protests.
12th (1969 – 1973)
Preliminary time as senator
On 11 June 1969, it was announced in The Irish Times that Bourke was running as a candidate for the . She was first elected to one of the three Dublin University seats in as an Independent senator as part of the , which first met on 5 November 1969. Elected on the second count, she was one of only six female senators, out of a total of 60. Bourke's stated goals as a senator were "to open up Ireland and separate Catholic teaching from aspects of the criminal law and therefore reform the law on contraceptives, legalise homosexuality and change the constitutional ban on divorce." Shortly after her election, she stated that the best way a woman could overcome prejudice against women was "not to emphasise that you are a woman, but to show that you can do a job efficiently and well".
As an independent senator, Bourke was initially unable to gather enough support to advance legislation, and devoted most of her time in the to proposing motions on matters she considered important, most of which were never discussed by the chamber.
In 1970, she wrote an article for The Irish Times, in which she criticised articles 2 and 3 of the Irish constitution as "an unnecessary assertion of jurisdiction", calling on Irish political parties to come to a solution on the so-called Northern problem. Her stance on Northern Ireland led to controversy in 1985.
Early attempts to legalise contraception Robinson's first term as a senator was largely marked by repeated attempts to legalise the sale of contraception. The first draft legislation Robinson put to the floor in early 1971, with support from John Horgan and Trevor West, was to legalise the sale of contraception in Ireland. Though not the first Irish politician to raise the issue, she was the first to attempt to introduce legislation on the matter. On 26 February Robinson notified the that she had prepared a bill to amend the 1935 Criminal Law Act, which would repeal the section that totally banned the sale of contraception. Despite having three signatories on the bill, Robinson failed to gather the six necessary to force a vote on debating the issue, and it was not discussed in the . Public outcry, however, ensued, and Robinson began to receive hate mail and used contraceptives in the post. Her proposals were caused outrage among the Catholic Church, and she was denounced from the pulpit of Ballina Cathedral, which caused distress to her parents. In March, she presented an amended version of her bill, seeking for it to be printed and distributed. Tomás Ó Maoláin, the Leader of the House, rejected her proposal, describing her as behaving in a "schoolgirlish, irresponsible manner". On 31 March and again on 12 May, Robinson's amended proposals were again dismissed without debate.
A few days after this fourth rejection, the Irish Women's Liberation Movement held the well-publicised "Contraceptive Train" protest, in which members of the group took the train to Belfast, purchased large amounts of contraceptives, and loudly and publicly declared what they had purchased to customs agents. Facing increasing pressure from the public, in July 1971 the government announced that Robinson could proceed with the first stage of her bill in the . The government deliberately didn't give Robinson notice of this move, as if she was defeated, she would have to wait six months before she could raise the issue again, and under procedural rules, only she and a spokesman for the government could deliver a speech. Due to the short notice provided to her, Robinson informed the that she would make a "rather angry statement", in place of a more considered speech. She argued that the government's stated goal of ending partition was at odds with maintaining a "moral partition" of the island. Her proposal was ultimately defeated by 25 votes to 14. In February 1972, two Labour Party Teachta Dála introduced a bill in the aimed at reforming the laws surrounding contraception in Ireland. An indication of Robinson's growing political influence, this bill was identical to the one she had put forward the previous July. This too was defeated.
Other issues Another topic which was a focus of Robinson's early terms in the was the issue of adoption rights vis-à-vis children born out of wedlock. At the time of Robinson's election to the , 'illegitimate children' (as they were then referred to in Irish law) could not be adopted by their parents after they married if the parents were of different religions. In the summer of 1971, a bill drafted by Robinson aimed at changing these laws was discussed in the .
Despite Robinson's opposition to the influence of the Catholic Church on Irish law and politics, she maintained a good relationship with certain groups within the Church. In January 1972, she was invited to take part in a working party set up by the Irish Theological Association, and became the first woman to do so (or, indeed, to even be invited). The working party's goal was to review the Irish Constitution. The party recommended removing the "special position" of the Catholic Church from the Constitution, changing the preamble to the constitution, removing the constitutional ban on divorce, amending the law on contraception, amending the laws on adoption, and changing the Catholic Church's regulations on mixed religion marriages. Robinson's influence can be clearly seen in these recommendations, as the laws prohibiting contraception and adoption were legislative, not constitutional. The party's report also found the constitution had "limited recognition of the rights of women".
In April 1972, Robinson called on all Irish politicians to remove all references to religion from both the Irish constitution and the Irish presidential oath. Shortly afterwards, at a meeting of the Dublin branch of on the topic "Republic of Ireland: a Catholic state for a Catholic people", she stated that Ireland statistically had a pluralist society, but legally that was not the case.
A general election was called by the Taoiseach, Jack Lynch for 28 February 1973, two months before lowering of the legal voting age from 21 to 18 came into effect. Robinson served as counsel on behalf of a student who challenged the government's decision, arguing that it effectively disenfranchised 140,000 voters. Though Robinson lost her case, she received significant positive publicity as a result of her efforts. In March 1973, shortly after her re-election campaign began, Robinson's mother died.
13th (1973 – 1977) Robinson's share of the vote increased in her second election, and she was elected on the first count, having exceeded the necessary quota of 1,213 votes.
On 1 January 1973, before the end of Robinson's first term in the , Ireland entered the European Economic Community (EEC). Two key goals of Robinson were thus met by proxy during her second term as a senator: as conditions of joining the EEC, Ireland was required to offer women in the public service equal pay to men, which came into effect in June 1973; and in July the marriage bar for women in the civil service was lifted. In 1973 Robinson first served on the Joint Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities — which she remained a member of until her retirement from the Seanad — and she was called to the bar of England and Wales, at Middle Temple.
Further attempts to legalise contraception As a result of the election called by Lynch, his party lost control of the government and Fine Gael entered into a coalition government with the Labour Party. Robinson expected the liberal influence of Labour in government to enable her to achieve greater political success, though ultimately this didn't prove to be the case. In March 1974, she again introduced a bill to formally legalise the sale of contraceptives in Ireland. This bill was more conservative than the previous two bills she had drafted, but after Paddy Cooney, the Minister for Justice, announced that the government was proposing their own family planning bill, support for Robinson's bill faded and was ultimately defeated in a vote, 32 to 10. The government's proposed bill, which was more conservative again than Robinson's, was also defeated in a vote, in which to the surprise of many the Taoiseach voted against his own party's bill. This action by the Taoiseach led to Robinson quipping that "we need government planning even more than family planning", a remark that was widely publicised by the Irish press. Though Robinson would again attempt to raise the issue in December 1974, it didn't gain any traction and the issue wasn't broached again for the duration of the government.
Children born out of wedlock In 1974, Robinson sought again to address the issue of the place of children born out of wedlock in Irish society. She was able to secure approval to print draft legislation, and delivered a speech to the members of the . Senator Michael D. Higgins participated in the debate, arguing that the bill didn't go far enough. The debate was eventually adjourned, but no further debate ever followed.
Robinson had more success in this area as a lawyer than as a politician: in May 1974 she represented a couple seeking to adopt, and succeeded in having one section of the 1952 Adoption Act deemed unconstitutional, though this was a niche issue which only affected a handful of people.
The right of women to sit on juries During this period, Robinson also addressed one of the key areas of concern to her: the right of women to sit on juries. Though at the time women were in some circumstances legally permitted to serve on juries, the laws surrounding this were discriminatory: only ratepayers were permitted to serve on juries, which disenfranchised the working-class, and the law differentiated between male and female ratepayers. Where men could be compelled to attend jury service and could face legal repercussions for refusing, women could not be compelled, and had to apply to be put on the jury list. As a result of this barrier, only three women sat on a jury in Ireland between 1963 and 1973. In December 1975 the Supreme Court found in favour of Robinson's client, Mairín de Burca, and in March 1976 the government legislated the Juries Act 1976, which granted every Irish citizen between the age of 18 and 65 the right to sit on a jury.
Since 1969, Robinson had been an advocate for the establishment of Free Legal Advice Centres. In April 1975, FLAC were able to open their first clinic in Coolock.
Joining the Labour Party