THE DEFEAT of the 30th Amendment to the Constitution by the significant margin of 116,000 votes is a welcome bloody nose for the Coalition Government and its hubris.
In presenting a poorly drafted amendment at a time when public anger at the political class, which stood to be empowered by it, remains white hot, the Coalition demonstrated appalling political judgment. It has only itself – not least the arrogance of Ministers Shatter and Howlin – to blame for this rout.
Voters have now been asked to amend their Constitution by governments of the day 32 times. On 23 occasions the proposal has been accepted – once, on adoption, by a 99 per cent majority – while nine times voters have voted down a suggested amendment. (Three times – on divorce, the Nice and Lisbon Treaties – they may have been said to have “got it right” at a second attempt.)
But that’s not a great record for governments and should have been taken as a clear warning that the citizenry are not sheep to be led or taken for granted, and that, despite complaints about lack of information, voters are discriminating and sophisticated. As they did in 1992 in voting down one amendment on abortion while backing two others (on travel and the right to information), the electorate this time endorsed one proposal and rejected another by substantially different margins.
Significantly, both propositions involved enhancing politicians’ powers that are currently the prerogative of the law, either curbing judges’ pay or defining the scope and powers of inquiries. Voters have been nuanced in perhaps seeing the former as a more theoretical than practical threat than the latter.
The experience of previous failed amendments, whether Fianna Fáil’s two attempts, in 1959 and 1968, to dilute the PR system in its favour, or in the votes on EU treaties, Nice I and Lisbon I, also tells important lessons. Voters hold their Constitution dear – they are also most attached to the idea that a referendum should be required to amend it – and do not appreciate attempts by parties or politicians, as they see it, to usurp it to their own ends. And they expect governments to prepare the ground and to make their case in plenty of time – that clearly did not happen this time.
It’s important, however, that the baby is not thrown out with the bathwater. The case for Oireachtas inquiries is strong, not only to reduce costs but to enhance accountability and backbench life in a dysfunctional political system. Others, notably through the decade-long work of joint Oireachtas committees on constitutional reform, have suggested other means within Constitutional constraints of doing such work. Such ideas should be urgently explored by the Oireachtas.
The vote is also a powerful warning to the Government that the case for its agenda of badly need political reform, which may well require up to seven constitutional amendments, will require both much clearer articulation and to be driven by a strong political consensus. The citizen of this proud but bruised Republic is not to be taken for granted.