Irish Referendum Commission

The role of the Referendum Commission is explained as follows on their website:

The role of the Referendum Commission is to explain the subject matter of referendum proposals, to promote public awareness of the referendum and to encourage the electorate to vote at the poll. The Commission is an independent body. Since 2001 the Commission no longer has the role of putting the arguments for and against referendum proposals.

It is my contention that they are failing in their duty to be impartial.

Here is a list of recent referendums in reverse chronological order:

• The Children Referendum
• Fiscal Stability Treaty
• Judge's Remuneration and Houses of the Oireachtas Inquiries 2011
• Lisbon Treaty 2009 
• Lisbon Treaty 2008 
• Irish Citizenship Treaty of Nice 2002

The older referendums had neutral names. The penultimate one had the word "stability" in it. This raises the question (which I discussed in a previous post) of who would vote against something as obviously good as stability. The referendum was approved.

The most recent one was even worse. Who in their right mind would vote against "Children". Again this referendum was approved.

I have written to the Commission to bring this to their attention. Hopefully we will see referendums with more neutral names in the future.

The next one is to be about the proposed abolition of Seanad Éireann. Perhaps they will call this one "The Get Rid of Those Useless Old Fogies in the Seanad Referendum".