Children’s referendum - Yes vote to be warmly welcomed

The passage of the children’s referendum is warmly welcomed. It may have been much closer than early polls indicated, but it was still passed by a comfortable margin of 58% to 42%.

Partisans on either side of the issue will attribute the make-up and size of the vote to different issues. In the days leading up to the ballot there were predictions that the turnout would be lower than the 1979 referendum turnout of less than 29%, but it was higher, at 33.49%. It became the seventh referendum in which the turnout was less than 35%.

Tánaiste Éamon Gilmore, who was disappointed by the size of the turnout, suggested that it might be necessary to look more closely at the issue of holding any future referendum on a Saturday. In 2002, the last time a referendum was held on a Saturday, the turnout was 49.47%, so it would seem that the day of the week was not the main factor in the latest low turnout.