Will of the people or a self-serving device?

DANA referred to the possibility of multiple referenda (Irish Examiner letters, July 5). She seems to think it’s undemocratic to have multiple referenda on the same question.

If a referendum is truly to be considered the will of the people, it doesn’t matter how often you put a question... you will always get the result which reflects what voters want.

Perhaps we’re meant to infer from what she says that Dana does not believe a referendum is fundamentally democratic. If, as I suspect, she thinks it’s a device by which an agenda can be furthered based on the right timing and some myth-making, it’s likely that the Government thinks so too - and the last referendum does nothing to assuage that fear.

If this is so, should we be using referenda at all, or can we introduce checks and balances to ensure that voters are honestly presented with all the issues?

The conclusion is that referenda can either be guaranteed to reflect the will of the people, and that it doesn’t matter how often you ask, or that you cannot guarantee the integrity of the process and you should never use referenda.

The conclusion can never be that the result of a referendum (by its nature only a snapshot) is cast in stone, particularly if it’s clear that people would be likely to vote differently if they knew all the facts rather than those only of one side. This, I suspect, is what Dana is afraid of.

Colin McGovern,

Baanstraat 5 3581 VS,

Utrecht,

The Netherlands.