Sir, – As we enter the last month of campaigning on the referendums, we’re seeing various organisations advocating for a Yes vote desperately making promises that they can’t stand over and which even the Government is not making.
A Yes vote is not a mandate for more funding for single parents specifically, families in general or carers or any other group in society. All we appear to be missing from the Yes/Yes campaigns is a picture of a large green bus with “€350 million for Carers” on the side.
By all means vote at local and general election time for parties and candidates who specifically espouse those policies, and if they get a majority in the chamber then you can talk about having mandates to put them into effect.
These referendums do not lead to more funding. Nor will a No vote mean less funding. The Government is quite able to increase spending on those areas without requiring a referendum to do so. Indeed governments have been doing so for decades.
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In a referendum you’re voting on what’s on the ballot page, not what you imagine it could or would like it to lead to.
Voting to retain the Seanad didn’t lead to reform of the Seanad because the latter wasn’t what was on the ballot. – Yours, etc,
DANIEL K SULLIVAN,
Marino,
Dublin 3.
Sir, – Minister for Equality Roderic O’Gorman has said a Yes vote in the referendum will help secure funding for disability services and carers. I’m not a constitutional scholar but I cannot see from the present wording in the Constitution how funding has been withheld because of the wording. Vanessa Conroy, who is the climate justice spokesperson at the National Women’s Council of Ireland, has linked the upcoming referendums to climate change. Once again, having read and re-read the present wording and the proposed wording, I cannot link the two. But as I have said previously, I am not a constitutional scholar. I can only hope that neither Roderic O’Gorman nor Vanessa Conroy link the upcoming referendums to either Christmas or Santa Claus. – Yours, etc,
RONAN NILAND,
Athlone,
Co Westmeath.