Sir, I write to you as secretary of the National Platform organisation and as former secretary of the Campaign for Fair Referenda, whose criticisms of the Government's spending public money to advocate one point of view in constitutional referenda were vindicated by the Supreme Court judgment in the McKenna case last November. The forthcoming Bail Referendum will be a test of the Government's commitment to fair referendum procedures, in the aftermath of the McKenna judgment.
During the Divorce Referendum, the Government made a gesture towards fairness when it used newspaper advertisements - to solicit the views of the public on divorce, and then commissioned senior counsel to summarise the best arguments on either side for distribution to all households in the form of a Yes/No booklet. This was a valuable precedent, which showed how Ireland could come in line with what is normal referendum practice, in other European democracies.
May I suggest also that citizens concerned with fair referendum procedures should be anxious too that in future referenda, RTE will refrain from permitting, political party broadcasts on radio or TV on such occasions. Such broad casts are quite appropriate in general elections, where people are electing representatives to legislate indirectly on their behalf, and these representatives mostly stand on party platforms. But are they not inappropriate in constitutional referenda, where the people themselves are legislating directly?
RTE is under no legal obligation to permit party political broadcasts in referenda. The Broadcasting, Act, however, does require it to be fair, impartial and objective in the coverage of current affairs and matters of public controversy. RTE's decision to permit party broadcasts in last November's Divorce Referendum meant that in the week before that vote, some 43 minutes of uncontested broadcasting time was given to the "Yes" side, as against 10 minutes for the "Nos". Yet the outcome showed that voters were almost equally divided. In the Maastricht and SEA referenda some years before, RTE permitted ten political party broadcasts to the "Yes" side and two to the "Nos", although the results showed nearly one third of voters on the "No" side on those occasions.
This policy of RTE is surely a misuse of public resources, in that it is unfair and unbalanced and calculated to affect adversely the rights of Irish citizens to fairness and equality in referenda, as enunciated by the Supreme Court in the McKenna case. One recognises that the McKenna judgment was given just one week before the divorce referendum, on the very eve of the first party political broadcast on divorce that RTE planned to carry.
In the circumstances, it is understandable that RTE did not have time to consider the implications of the Supreme Court judgment for its policy on political broadcasts. It has had time since, however. May I urge those of, your readers who think that this matter of fair referendum procedures is important for Irish democracy, to urge RTE to revise its policy on this matter in all future constitutional referenda. - Yours, etc.,
Secretary,
The National Platform, 24 Crawford Avenue,
Dublin 9.