Sir, - A Bill before the Dail proposes to allow 20,000 citizens to nominate a candidate for election to the Presidency in order to widen the franchise. Surely we should be moving in the opposite direction by abolishing both the nomination process and direct election by the people and eliminating the existing constitutional anomalies.
There is no point in providing for popular election to an office which is primarily ceremonial. In the present situation candidates and their party supporters conduct a bogus campaign and the successful candidate arrives in Aras an Uachtarain buoyed up by a spurious mandate. The reforming zeal then confronts the constitutional realities and the victim may be consigned to seven years of turbulent desperation.
Given the nature of the presidential office, we should dispense with popular election and substitute election by a restricted electoral college. Why not election solely by members of local authorities, now that we are slowly beginning to recognise the important rile of local government? A thought for the Constitution Review Committee. - Yours, etc.,
Churchtown, Dublin 14.