Sir, – The setting by the Government of October 27th, a Thursday, for the presidential election and constitutional referendums is strange and regrettable. It will doubtless serve to disenfranchise many students and others based away from their home constituencies during the working week. It is all the more strange a decision given that the parties who currently make up the Government regularly complained when previous governments held elections on a Thursday.
It is particularly regrettable given that – in light of the EU-IMF bailout – so many other powers of decision-making have effectively been ceded to forces not of this island. If we are to have any hope of engaging as many citizens as possible in the constitutional processes of our battered democracy, surely holding the election and referendums on a Friday would have been preferable – Yours, etc,