Sir, - Your Editorial of December 14th urging that "the referendum proposal should be abandoned now" in fact urges the Government to act unconstitutionally. The Constitution is quite specific. Article 46 Section 2 reads:
"Every proposal for an amendment to this Constitution shall be initiated in Dβil Eireann as a Bill, and shall, upon having been passed or deemed to have been passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas, be submitted by referendum to the decision of the people in accordance with the law for the time being relating to the referendum".
This law requires the Minister for the Environment to give between 30 and 90 days' notice for the poll.
The President and the Supreme Court have no power to prevent such a referendum. For a Government to refrain from setting a date on no stronger grounds than a fear that the people might not vote the way the Government (or part of it) wished would merely deepen the mood of cynicism presently prevalent about the political system. - Yours, etc.,
Cornelius O'Leary, Emeritus Professor, School of Politics, Queen's University, Belfast 7.