Last Saturday I stood in St. Patrick's Hall in Dublin Castle awaiting the announcement of the referendum result. It was a rather strange and even surreal experience. I was the only Member of the Oireachtas present and initially no journalists were there until a crew from RTE belatedly turned up. In a sense, it was a fitting conclusion to a debacle — the referendum on cabinet confidentiality. It was a dark day for democracy. If we really care about democracy, we need to analyse the referendum campaign and results in detail.
The figures speak for themselves. Some 66,111 votes were spoiled and 11,625 people who voted in the presidential election did not bother to vote in the referendum. Added together, these figures give us a total of 77,736, which is greater than the margin of victory which was 63,602. The message is clear. People were confused and were not adequately informed about this important constitutional amendment. If they had been informed, I am convinced the "no" vote would have come out on top. As the "no" argument received publicity in the final few days, more people came to the view that we were including a half-baked measure in the Constitution and that we were, in effect, enshrining secrecy in the Constitution. The amendment was deeply flawed and we were asked to trust the Government.
I call on the Taoiseach to honour the commitment he gave to the House to revisit this matter. I hope he does so by Easter and that he does not hold the referendum on the same day as that on the Amsterdam Treaty. This referendum should treat the electorate with more respect and all future referenda should be conducted in a more even-handed and informative way. Five parties in the House advocated a "yes" vote — the two Coalition parties and the three parties which constituted the Rainbow Government. It is remarkable that on such important questions there is a very cosy consensus in the House. At the time of the bail referendum, the same five parties advocated a "yes" vote. I have no doubt that on the Amsterdam Treaty they will again advocate a "yes" vote.
Is it any wonder people have become cynical and disillusioned with politics? They are deprived of choice and information. The strategy of the five conservative parties, as I refer to them, is simply to deprive people of information and hope they will go to the ballot box and follow the party line. Mr. Joe Duffy of RTE relayed an interesting anecdote. He told us a woman in Swords approached the Taoiseach and asked him to explain what the referendum was about. He dismissed her by saying, "Do not ask any questions as it would take me all night to answer them; simply vote ‘yes'".
The advertisements placed by the ad hoc commission in the newspapers looked like planning applications and were not user friendly. The commission should be constituted into a proper commission similar to the one in Canada which operates very effectively. This would ensure that in future RTE would not follow slavishly the party line and simply allocate time to the largest parties. Such an approach negates democracy and is not what a referendum is about. Time should be allocated to the parties for and against a proposal on a 50-50 basis.