I was going to do a follow up to my essay on the the proposed amendments to the Irish Constitution ( see Referendum ) but the Scots launched their Hate Speech Act on April Fools day and I couldn’t resist commenting on it. ( Hate Speech ) I had put the Referendum on the back burner until an article in the Irish Times caught my eye. Before we examine it, I would like to say that the quality of investigative journalism has fallen but in equal part, the ability of people to asses the truthfulness of the information supplied has also deteriorated. You used to accept that the Guardian and the Telegraph were reporting from different ends of the political spectrum but the basic facts were there and usually the opposite view was given some space to give a sense of balance. Now there is a definite partisan bias to mainstream news coverage. On the other hand, readers are far less inclined to question what and how news is reported. Well let’s see how well the IT matches up to that low bar.
The story concerns the thirty ninth and fortieth Amendment to the Constitution and one of the most contentious issues was the attempt to redefine the family by adding the term ‘durable relationships’ to Article 41.1.1. Opponents to the Amendment immediately pointed out that this phrase had no legal meaning in this context. Indeed, the leading opponent of the referendum, former Justice Minister Michael McDowell, raised the potential problems with taxation, succession and family law. As reported by the I.T, “Campaigners for No warned before the family vote of “long-term consequences” for tax law. But when the Government was asked whether it had examined the tax implications of the proposed amendment, it stated in unambiguous terms that there would be no tax impact.” (IT 21/05/24) Unfortunately for the government, this position was not true. As a result of a freedom of information (FOI) request documents relating to this question were released by the Revenue, and told a different story.
Revenue officials warned of potential tax law changes arising from the family referendum before Ministers claimed the proposal had no tax implications, according to newly-released files that raise fresh questions about the Government campaign. (IrishTimes, 21/05/24)
It is difficult to underestimate the seriousness of this. The government has run for cover and used the Attorney General as a shield against the accusations of miss or diss information to push through an unpopular change to the Constitution. This is as if the prosecution in a murder trial hid exculpatory evidence from the defence lawyers. The government were put on notice that the Department that administered the tax regime had serious doubts about the wording to be used in the amendments. An honest government would have disclosed the Revenue’s reservation and the A.G.’s review and let it be part of the public debate. There is no other way of putting this, the government hid the revenue’s warning and repeatedly lied to the public on the tax question.
What else can we take from the I.T. article. There are two bits of information that I think are worth looking at. The first is, who filed the FOI request? It is not clear, from the article, whether it was the I.T. or publications like Gript but credit to both of them for following up on this story The second question is, which Ministers lied to the public? You wouldn’t know from the IT article, which means I have to deduct some points gained for pursuing the story. They talk about the government and it’s spokesmen but no names. We are too used to tiredly accepting low standards from high officials but just like naughty children, if there are no consequences for bad behaviour, then it becomes the norm. The view of the IT seems to be, ‘not much to see here’ and described the lie as a “constructive ambiguity”. (IT 22/05/24) That’s a new one on me and I am sure that it took a lot of resources from the IT staff to come up with that one. They further stated that, although the government was hiding behind the A.G. one could “imply” that this meant that they had, at least, considered the Revenues opinion, even though their conclusion was wrong. Hold on though, it just gets even more distant from reality as the editorial continued,
The trouble is that such nuances get lost in the noise. Instead, the impression that is left is one of a government misleading the electorate. That, in the current climate, can further erode public trust. Governments would do well to bear this in mind in advance of future referendums. (IT 22/05/24)
We seem to forget that the government and all it’s people work for the Irish citizens. The government has no money or assets of it’s own but disperses money taken from those citizens. We seem to have morphed into a society run by a small elite of cultural marxists and their fellow travellers who exist in a bubble totally out of touch with the people that ultimately employ them. This is why the IT didn’t identify those who lied but talked in terms of ‘nuances’ and the rather ridiculous ‘constructive ambiguity’. This, in part, explains the outcome of the referendum, the very short version being that Leo and Co. got hammered and humiliated and he resigned! There was another issue related to the proposed change of definition of the family in the constitution and that relates to immigration. As reported by Gary Kavanagh, a senior official in the Department of Justice said “The State has been able to maintain an immigration system so far precisely because Article 41 is applied to a small, tightly-defined group of people. The State will not be able to regulate immigration if this protection is applied any more widely.” (Gript, 21/05/24) Was it a ‘constructive ambiguity’ that prevented this issue surfacing during the debate on the referendum?
The IT is correct when it says that there is a loss of public trust in government institutions and also in those that support them. There is no ‘noise‘ that deafened people to an explanation of the governments action. There is no ‘impression‘ that the government mislead the electorate as the IT put it. There is no doubt that the government lied but they lied with the expectation that there would be no consequences. I will leave it to Senator Sharon Keogan to sum up.
“Today’s disclosure, in addition to the Interdepartmental Minutes and the leaks by Gript and The Ditch earlier this year, make it an inescapable fact that this government misled the Irish public on the Constitutional referendums…..“This should be a national scandal – if this were a different period of time in which we didn’t have so many journalists seeking Special Advisor roles. The legacy media would be asking government ministers, ‘when are you going to resign?’(Gript, 21/05/24)
Sources
Arthur Beesley, 21/05/24, The Irish Times, Revenue officials wthe sarned privately that family referendum could force tax changes
Editorial, 22/05/24, The Irish Times, The Irish Times view on referendum information: a potential erosion of trust
Maria Maynes, 21/05/24, Gript, SENATOR: REVENUE OFFICIALS’ WARNING THAT FAMILY REFERENDUM COULD FORCE TAX CHANGES ‘SHOULD BE NATIONAL SCANDAL’
Two proposed amendments, which voters considered on Friday, were intended to reflect the more secular, liberal values of the nation’s modern era.
https://www.irishtimes.com/life-style/2024/03/16/metropolitan-bubble-referendum-fallout-for-irish-politics-and-wider-society/?