Convention should change its agenda

It may be a tad cynical to suggest that because the first meeting of our long-awaited constitutional convention was scheduled to begin its work just days before a much-feared budget that it might not get the attention such a radical, in Irish terms at least, innovation deserves.

Of course such a clash may be coincidental but if the process had the kind of political support it deserves it would have been set on a stage far less cluttered. The Savita Halappanavar tragedy has made the convention even less visible too.

Sadly, the convention has not captured the public imagination. Neither has it convinced those who still hope this Republic might eventually be able to refute charges that it is a largely dysfunctional state crippled by stasis, powerful interest groups public and private, numbing conservatism and the kind of low self-esteem and deference ingrained by decades of underachievement.