Turnout as low as 2% in some counties

tracking

Were internet vote on this Amendement available would not have voted. Hear "voter apathaty" cited in the media as first reason for low turnout, followed by lack of information. Aught the public be labelled apathetic by the media left right and centre? The point is this was a promised Referendum (maybe, by previous administration). My trouble, competance in the presentation was insultingly low. The proposed Amendement to give Dail special powers of inquiry was their own request from a Government with an overwhelming mandate failed badly. Did the media notice that? Does the media question their significance? Their simplification may have to do with the present National Debt. Nice portion of which is due to embellishment of them.

The media will label Government is idiots for loosing a Supreme Court writ. Then seperately State's Electoeate as lazy.

Who is not doing their job correctly?

oscarBravo

tracking wrote: »

Who is not doing their job correctly?

Honestly? The electorate. All that's asked of the ordinary voter is that they show up once a year or so and cast a ballot. If he or she can't be bothered to do that - or to do the ten minutes of research required to get a basic clue about the issues at question - then it's pretty clear where the blame lies.

RandomName2

I didn't vote.

If the only provision of the amendment had been the removal on restriction on the adoption of children of married parents, I would have been inclined to vote yes (even if the provision is largely irrelevant)

Ultimately I couldn't decide to what extent the whole collection of changes taken together was constitutional messing about, or an attempt by the government to grab more power by placing a greater emphasis on the state than the family as the ultimate arbiter on what is best for the child (and it is to be noted that the state in this capacity has a pretty lousy track record).

The no side didn't sufficiently convince me of the latter however - particularly due to the absolute absence of political support for the no side, even among minority groups and (sitting) independents. The yes side had their usual guff and hectoring tones of course, including what looked suspiciously like recycled Libertas posters. :P

Why this has taken years and years to put together, and why it was not bundled in with other proposed amendments (like judges pay/oireachtas enquiries) is quite beyond me... :pac:

eire4

Ellis Dee wrote: »

I had to come to Finland for some medical treatment (the alternative would have been to have it in Ireland, but I want to try and live a bit longer) so I couldn't vote yesterday. However, I would have voted "yes", especially when I look at who and what was advocating a "no" vote.

I'm not sure the amendment will achieve all that much actually, but if Dana and John Waters and their ilk are against it, it must have something going for it.

That said, many of the savage crimes perpetrated against children, especially those in institutions run by the church, over the decades since we supposedly achieved independence were completely illegal even at the time, but nothing was done. That raises the question of how we can be sure that any number of lofty-sounding laws and declarations of noble aspirations will actually protect our children now, either.

The low turnout points to a massive malaise in Irish society. There is something very seriously wrong when 20% of the electorate want to protect children, 15% are against it and 65% seemingly don't give enough of a toss to go out and vote.

Perhaps it's down to voter fatigue, with endless wrangling - invariably with sickening religious overtones - about the latest patch they want to stick onto a document that is way, way past its "sell by" date and should have been binned long ago.

Rather than having these referendums every few years, with all the messing involving the Supreme Court that they involve, isn't it time we faced up to reality as a nation and started from scratch to write a new constitution that suits the present century rather than the 19th?

Dev's constitution is a cross between a religious tract and a political manifesto and is founded on at least one lie, when it declares that worship is due to an almighty deity - although reason must tell anyone who possesses it that there is no evidence for the existence of such an entity. This could be replaced with a recognition of everyone's right to believe whatever they want, as long as this does not impact adversely on others.

I was watching from the sidelines and sometimes closer as the Finns revised their 1919 constitution - which had actually served them rather well - from the 1970s onwards, setting up several cross-party committees, bringing in all kinds of experts and consulting many more as they worked out a new constitution. That led to the fundamental rights provisions being completely revised in 1995, and they were incorporated as such into the new constitution that came into force in 2000.

It say this about children, by the way (in the chapter dealing with fundamental rights and freedoms): "Children shall be treated equally and as individuals and they shall be allowed to influence matters pertaining to themselves to a degree corresponding to their level of development."

Note that children are guaranteed an input in everything concerning them, and not just in confrontational court cases as proposed in Ireland.:)

I suggest that in the Irish case we should first elect a constitutional assembly (preferably extending the vote to expatriate Irish citizens) and let them get on with their work of drafting a constitution that will do us proud and make us the envy of the world.

Then let us vote on it, and in such a way that citizens have little if any excuse for failing to go to the ballot box: again the Finnish way - advance voting for a couple of weeks in all post offices, embassies abroad, hospitals, institutions and then actual voting at polling stations for one or two days or perhaps even longer.

We owe it to ourselves to get our house in proper order at long last. :cool:

Brilliant post Ellis Dee. Very interesting read and you make some great points. We really do need a constitutional assembly formed so it can begin work on producing a modern constitution.

Morag

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/charity-chief-to-become-chair-of-constitutional-convention-3271321.html

There is to be a constitutional convention next year, it's all ready being set up.

GCU Flexible Demeanour

Sharrow wrote: »

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/charity-chief-to-become-chair-of-constitutional-convention-3271321.html

There is to be a constitutional convention next year, it's all ready being set up.

This Convention seems to be just to work on specific Amendments, and not to draft a new Constitution.

http://www.merrionstreet.ie/index.php/2012/02/constitutional-convention-government-proposals-28-february-2012/

The PfG sets out a programme of topics to be considered by the Convention and the Government does not propose to depart from that. The PfG proposes that the Convention examine the following matters:
Review of the Dáil electoral system;
Reducing the Presidential term to five years and aligning it with the local and European elections;
Giving citizens the right to vote at Irish embassies in Presidential elections;
Provision for same-sex marriage;
Amending the clause on the role of women in the home and encouraging greater participation of women in public life;
Increasing the participation of women in politics;
Removing blasphemy from our Constitution;
Reducing the voting age to 17.
The PfG also makes it clear that the Convention is free to consider “other relevant constitutional amendments that may be recommended by it”. It is the Government’s view, however, that the Convention should deal first with the topics in the PfG.

I don't know if we've enough consensus, generally, to agree a new Constitution. I'd have a fear that we'd end up with a document stuffed with all kinds of aspirational baloney, like the Amendment just adopted and the screed apparently planned to have something in the Constitution "Increasing the participation of women in politics". (WTF? Mandatory Testosterone injections?)

Rather than adding to the baloney in the Constitution, I'd suggest we could do with removing some. Such as:

Removing the references to the Holy Trinity and Jesus Christ from the preamble, along with the baloney about the "centuries of trial" and the remembrance of the "heroic and unremitting struggle" for independence.

Removal of the bit about cherishing people of Irish ancestry; it's really too much to let the tourist industry write our laws.

Removal of the Irish language as the first official language, and consequent removal of the daft idea that the Irish version of the Constitution takes precedence over the English.

Removal of the social policy stuff in Article 45, particularly the comely maidens aspirations of the statement " That there may be established on the land in economic security as many families as in the circumstances shall be practicable."

There's probably other stuff, but that would do for a start.

Ambient Occlusion

On the point of voting ignorant of the proposed changes; would it not be best for ignorant voters to still turn up but spoil their vote rather than not turning up? Would it not show that any result is representative of the opinion of the Irish people more conclusively?

28064212

Ambient Occlusion wrote: »

On the point of voting ignorant of the proposed changes; would it not be best for ignorant voters to still turn up but spoil their vote rather than not turning up? Would it not show that any result is representative of the opinion of the Irish people more conclusively?

How do you distinguish between the people who spoil because "I don't care about this issue, whatever the majority want is fine by me", and the people who spoil because "none of these options represent me"?