Vote No in the forgotten referendum
There is a referendum to amend the constitution in the 26
Counties on the same day as the presidential election next week.
Not many people know that. This referendum is the best kept
secret in years. Only in the past few days has the government
taken any measures to inform the public of what they are being
asked to do with the constitution.
The issue is Cabinet confidentially. It dates back to 1988 when
the Fianna Fáil Attorney-General went to the High Court to stop
the Beef Tribunal from inquiring into Fianna Fáil Cabinet
decisions on export credit insurance to Iraq. The High Court
rejected the Attorney-General's request but the Supreme Court
allowed it and copperfastened Cabinet confidentiality.
The present referendum is designed supposedly to relax that
outright ban on revelations of Cabinet proceedings. But its main
purpose seems to be to facilitate the upcoming Moriarty Tribunal
on payments to Charles Haughey and Michael Lowry. Not for the
first time the electorate is being asked to insert into the
constitution a wording based on short-term expediency rather than
long-standing principles. The proposed amendment seems
unnecessarily sweeping and could, for example, make
unconsitutional the publication by former Cabinet members of
memoirs, historical accounts and diaries, even if the publication
was long after the event.
There has been no real debate and less real information supplied
by the proposers of this consititional change. They have rejected
the option of postponing the referendum until the Amsterdam
Treaty referendum next year. As an opion poll showed last week
the public wants openness not more secrecy, with 72 per cent
favouring access to all relevant Cabinet information.
For these reasons alone you should vote NO on 30 October.
Clear battle lines
The candidacy of Mary McAleese has brought some clarity into
politics. It has exposed those who are working to keep Ireland
partitioned. It has always been known to republicans that
Democratic Left and Fine Gael and their allies are unionists at
heart. But by attacking Mary McAleese these partitionists have
proved to a much wider audience the depth of their hatred of
nationalism. They have always been the enemies of the peace
process because they recognise that it heralds the end of their
conservative, colonialist vision.
It is to be welcomed that an election in which republicans had
little or no interest has now shone light on the enemies of a
united, peaceful Ireland.
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/harp.gif)