Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION has recommended that the broadcast moratorium should be removed from future referendums.
It also called for the design of referendum ballot papers to be reviewed before the next referendum and for a proposed amendment to be published no later than 16 weeks before voters go to the polls.
The recommendations are included in a report from the Electoral Commission on the Family and Care referendums on 8 March.
The Electoral Commission was founded last February and is tasked with, among other things, explaining the subject matter of referendums and reviewing Dáil Éireann and European Parliament constituencies, as well as local electoral area boundaries.
The broadcast moratorium means radio and television broadcasters cannot report on elections or referendums from 2pm the day before polls open until the close of polls.
This does not apply to online media or social media.
These guidelines are issued by media regulator Coimisiún na Meán, but it has said recently that it will review the moratorium following a “clear” call from stakeholders for it to be removed in recent years.
The Electoral Commission in its report called the moratorium “anomalous and open to potential exploitation”, especially when “online media and social media is so prevalent”.
It recommended that the broadcast moratorium be removed from the guidelines for radio and television broadcasters before the next electoral event.
The Electoral Commission has also recommended that the publication of a proposed amendment be no later than 16 weeks before the proposed polling day.
It said this will allow for the Referendum Information Booklets to be designed, printed, and distributed in time.
The aim is for every household to receive this booklet between two and three weeks before polling day, and the Electoral Commission said 16 weeks is the minimum time required to allow for this.
It noted that the Family and Care referendums only have 13 weeks to design and deliver the booklets, and that this period included Christmas and New Year.
Delivery for March’s referendums began on 12 February and the scheduled An Post delivery was completed on 1 March, a week out from polling.
However, a further delivery took place up to 5 March, three days before the referendums.
“This is not an optimal timeframe in which to provide independent information on proposed constitutional change,” said the Electoral Commission.
Meanwhile, it’s been recommended that the ballot papers should be redesigned as the March ballot papers were “not sufficiently clear”.
The Electoral Commission said it was “difficult for voters to differentiate between ballot papers which looked almost identical in respect of their text and layout”.
It recommended that the overall design be reviewed and that a “simple prominent heading stating the subject matter of the proposal be included”.
It also called for a minimum of 60 days’ notice of polling day – the current minimum notice is 30 days.
For the March referendums, the Polling Day Order was signed 42 days before the designated polling day.
The Electoral Commission said this meant deliveries of the referendum booklet continued up to three days before the referendum and had the Polling Day Order been signed 30 days before the designated polling day, it would not have been possible to print and distribute the booklets in time.
It was also recommended that the work of the Electoral Commission should be funded from the Central Fund, which is the main accounting fund used by the Government.
Currently, an annual estimate is introduced by the Minister for Local Government and this is subject to controls and approvals by the Minister.
Provision was made for referendum expenditure of €3.5m in the 2024 budget, approved in 2023.
However, the Government deferred a patent referendum that had been due to take place last month, and had that referendum been held, a supplementary estimate would have been required.
The Electoral Commission said this “would have determined the nature and scope of the campaign” and that a “question now arises in relation to the appropriateness of the Executive controlling the resources”.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
I bet they wished they had paid the additional oxygen fee, now!
Imagine taking a coach to your destination from the airport after a Ryanair flight?
@Dave Thomas: it is a two hour coach or train transfer from a lot of their airports.
@David Dickson: I think that’s what he was getting at
@Pauliebhoy: I’m having a slow Sunday.
“A few passengers” = 30 ?
What about Ryanair Rooms. Not enough accommodation in the city of Frankfort . I think not
@Euro is Dead: it was Frankfurt-Hahn, 125 kilometres to Frankfurt.
@Euro is Dead: try finding accommodation for a plane full of passengers at 11pm on a Friday night in Dublin, shannon or cork Plus for operational reasons they’d try to keep passengers together.
@Dara Smith: my sentiments exactly, you wouldn’t get a tent in Dublin or anywhere else at that hour of night
@Euro is Dead: Frankfurt Hahn is closer to Luxembourg city than it is to Frankfurt
The comments here are a bit insensitive this was a terrifying ordeal I don’t think a lovely but if compensation is the issue .
@Deborah McKenna: why not, a proper investigation into it and a penalty to make sure it never reoccurs 30 x 40k more like
Lovely bit of compensation. €400 per pax minimum :)
@kevinhunt101: I think burst eardrums, the embarrassment of involuntary bowel purging, near suffocation and the fear of your impending death must be worth more than €400.
@Paraic: so…..€425?
@Paraic: Fear of Death? Would you get a grip! It was a controlled descent due to cabin depressurisation not a hole in the aircraft! Not once during that flight was there a risk of fatality. The media are making this out to be much worse than it is, slow news week it would seem
@Jordan Dunne: Lots of people already have fear of flying before boarding. Do you think they were unfazed when there was a sudden and rapid decompression event, the oxygen masks popped down, they began bleeding from their ears and nose and shat their pants involuntarily? Not to mention the fact that rapid decompression has often been catastrophic to flights historically. The plane descended from 36,000ft to about 10,000 in mere seconds. Irrespective of whether it was in control of the pilot, it was terrifying for the passengers. You’re the one who needs to get a grip!
@Jordan Dunne: lol, have you ever been on a plane? Or met people? Somehow I really doubt the latter.
@Paraic: 36000 to 10000 feet in seconds ? Well thats just a blatant lie. Id say you must be terrified of flying.
De pressurisation is not unusual, and it is trained for by the crew – how frequest? there can one a day or one a week worldwide, in fact one study suggested two depressurisation a day based on the number of hours flown, but that data could be a little out of date, just it is not a rare event and almost all pass without incident or media coverage.
When it happens and an aircraft springs a leak, which essentially what depressurisation is, a few things happen.. as the internal air pressure falls owing to air leaking out, the oxygen masks will be ploy automatically, however the crew may deploy them in advance too. The crew try to descend around 12,000 feet where most people can breathe with no difficulty, and the aircraft could continue safely, and with no more need for oxgyen or masks, to it;s destination, as happens if this happens over water. However, unless there is a known reason for the depressurisation, the aircraft may choose to land.
We all know the effects on our ears of normal flight operations and depressurisation make this worse if sudden, Most decompressions on aircraft are slow enough so that the emergency descent operated by the crew avoids serious issues, but if the depressurisation is rapid enough then the issue becomes more serious.
One can think of a balloon which can leak air slowly and slowing deflating and the balloon that goes pop – both are burst but one is slow and the other destructive. This really does seem to have been a quite serious decompression if passengers were unfit to fly afterwards, even if just “playing it safe”.
We should hope they all recover with no lasting issues, but also not fear decompressisation as it is a well trained for procedure.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: the Cabin pressure controller failed. The masks deployed automatically and pilots followed standard procedure by making a controlled rapid descent . Aircraft landed safely with some minor injuries. Not that big a deal
@Jordan Dunne: Is your real name Michael O Leary?
@Paraic: hehe you got me
think they continue by air ambulance
have your say