Referendum defeat for Irish Government:

IRISH PEOPLE REJECT
GOVERNMENT
POWER-GRAB:

The Government’s proposal to abolish Seanad Éireann (Irish Senate) was defeated in yesterday’s Referendum. On a poll just short of 40% the result was: Yes: 591,937 (48.3%), NO: 634,437 (51.7%).

There was a clear east-west geographic divide in the country with Dublin and the eastern counties voting solid NO and southern and western counties voting Yes, but, only by the narrowest of margins in most cases.

No Dublin constituency recorded a Yes vote, a staggering defeat for the coalition government of Fine Gael and the Labour Party. For Labour, already under severe pressure because of the IMF/EU austerity budgets and showing only 6% support in the latest opinion polls this bodes badly for their chances in next year’s local government and European Parliament elections when the results of this referendum will still be fresh in voters’ memory.

Analysis will continue in the next few weeks of the various aspects of the NO vote, a cross-party, non ideological event but, a clear implication of serious mistrust of government intentions whatever proposal is being put forward. The political credibility of An Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny, is severely dented since this proposal was initiated by him as a personal project and pursued without much logical input from himself and with a damaging refusal to engage in any public debate about the issue he was asking the electorate to support.

With large quantities of egg-on-face, the Government must now deal with a hostile public and a coterie of hostile but determined and intellectually able Senators who campaigned against the abolition and who managed to throw out a government measure the day before the Referendum. The Government have already set-up a “Constitutional Convention” to discuss amendments to the Constitution but, for unknown reasons failed to submit their senate abolition proposal to this body, a political mistake as now demonstrated by today’s result.

Even though the Government has a comfortable majority in Dáil Éireann, the lower house, this has been fraying at the edges with four Labour members and four Fine Gael members already outside the Party whip adding to their many political headaches as the next electoral test looms in 2014. Further, next week’s State Budget is likely to be as controversial as the previous ones even though it is the last of the IMF/EU supervised ones. The economy has not grown sufficiently fast for a relaxing of the constraints on State finances which would allow them to try to restore some political popularity in the short term.


In a typically opportunist but, astute move Opposition Leader, Mícheál Martin’s, Fianna Fáil Party, which led the previous government of boom and then bust, took up the NO side campaign, a novelty for them since they have spent the last forty years campaigning for YES votes on every occasion for further integration with the unelected Brussels Bureaucracy and fully supported the militarisation of Europe as well.

The result is also a setback for rising Opposition party, Sinn Féin, who now seemed to have made a serious tactical mistake in joining the YES Campaign despite earlier instinctive misgivings by party leader, Gerry Adams.

All this makes for an interesting political scene in Ireland for the next few months.

Vote NO in Referendum:

ATTACK ON DEMOCRACY

BY ARROGANT

GOVERNMENT:

 

 

Today’s Referendum on abolition of Seanad Éireann (Irish Senate) the second house of the Oireachtas (Legislature) purports to be a “reform” but is merely a power-grab by the government with the largest majority ever in the history of the State and citizens should carefully consider whether they want this government to have untrammelled power without possibility of legislative scrutiny which, admittedly in limited fashion, was provided by Seanad Éireann since it was established in the 1937 Constitution.

The Government case is based on the narrowness of the electorate which elects the members and the cost, which they have stated is €20M but, this has been proven to be greatly exaggerated by political observers. Since the form of election is entirely a matter for the politicians it is they who are responsible for the failures to reform the system over 75 years not the Seanad itself, which has always been controlled by the parties in the other house, Dáil Éireann.

Their proposed abolition amendments to be voted on today have not been discussed in any detail in any public forum and the sneaky abolition of Article 27 of the Constitution which provides for a petition to the President to proclaim a referendum on any Dáil bill which a proportion of members consider should be referred to the people has not been debated except on last night’s Vincent Browne debate on TV3. No mention ever given on national broadcaster RTÉ.

The Government has not proposed any alternative legislative proposals other than vague promises to give additional powers to parliamentary committees which will still have the party whip applied and the majority of chairpersons still nominated by the Government. So much for “reform” which has been the main slogan of the government supporters in this referendum. With their overwhelming majority in Dáil Éireann they can easily ignore the Opposition and carry on as usual but, without even the feeble voices in the Seanad to question their authority. In effect, they are asking for a blank cheque from the people in this political scam.

No government should be given blank cheques! Let them put their money where their mouth is and produce genuine reform legislative proposals which can be seen and debated in public. Therefore, vote NO in today’s referendum.