Shatter doubts on Oireachtas referendum

Justice Minister Alan Shatter has expressed doubts the referendum on Oireachtas investigations would pass and claimed some misinformation had been fed to the public.

The Fine Gael TD, who has championed both referendums, particularly a second on reducing judges’ pay in line with other public servants, said he believed the reforms had been overshadowed by the presidential election.

“Huge attention was on the presidential election. It was only over the last week in the run-in to the referendums that they were given much attention by the media, unfortunately,” he said.

Mr Shatter said while he was optimistic the judicial pay reform would pass, he was hoping the proposals to radically increase the power of parliamentary inquiries also would.

“Part of the referendum I was in charge of was the one on judiciary pay. I’m very optimistic that one will turn out well. I hope that the other one does too,” he said.

“The message is put out very clearly but it depends on how much media coverage it gets. People get their politics and information from current affairs programmes and the broadcast media.”

But he added: “There was an amount of misinformation put out in respect of both referendums.”

The Minister said the general public is not concerned about the minutia of referendums and Government policies in the same way politicians are, so they rely on the media for information.

He added: “I hope both referendums are successful.”

Mr Shatter said it was important the Oireachtas investigations referendum be passed to ensure increased accountability and fairness.

If it is passed, the Government will be given greater powers to carry out inquiries into individuals if it is considered to be in the public interest.

It will see power shift from the Supreme Court to the Oireachtas.

Counting begins tomorrow morning on the two referendums, with indications on success or failure by the afternoon. Results will be fed through to Dublin Castle to be verified.

Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore insisted it was too early to say if the Government was in trouble over the Oireachtas investigations referendum.

“I don’t think any serious tallying has been done of the referendum ballots papers,” he said.

“I think people at count centres had their eye on the election papers rather than the referendum papers, so we really don’t know and won’t know until they are counted.”