No camp cry foul on Nice commission change

ANTI-NICE Treaty campaigners yesterday accused the Government of emasculating the Referendum Commission to prevent the No side being heard.

The commission's function to inform people of the Yes and No arguments has been scrapped, which clears the way for massive

Yes-side advertising, claimed National Platform spokesman Anthony Coughlan.

Most people do not know that the Referendum Commission's function has been changed, Mr Coughlan said.

"Every fair-minded person should object to it," he said.

But a Government spokeswoman last night rejected the claim that the Referendum Commission had been emasculated by removing its power to put forward the arguments for the Yes and No votes.

The commission produced a booklet outlining the reasons for the Yes and No vote in the last Nice Referendum but it just confused people, she said.

"There was a massive amount of reasons given on both sides many of which did not stand up to valid arguments," she added.

And this was why the Government removed the obligation on the commission to put forward arguments for and against the Nice Treaty.

The commission is totally independent of the Government and has been given 3.5 million of public money to spend on its information campaign.

"Their main job is to encourage people to vote, tell them what they will be voting on and give as much unbiased information as possible but the commission decides what information goes into that leaflet," the Government spokeswoman added.

The Referendum Commission is an independent statutory body set up following the McKenna High Court judgement which stated no public money could be used to promote any one side of a proposal being put to a vote.

The Government launched a separate 600,000 information leaflet on Nice on Monday.

But the Taoiseach insisted the booklet did not contravene the McKenna judgement, which bans the State from supporting one side of a referendum campaign.