Islanders get second chance to vote after confusion over bail poll date

THE political exhortation to "vote early and vote often" takes on a new significance today as voting in the bail referendum on five islands off the west coast takes place for the second time in four days. In what is believed to be an unprecedented move, voters are to be given another chance to go to the polls today, this time with voters in the rest of the State.

This is because many missed out on voting earlier this week due to a mix up over polling cards.

Hundreds of voters on the three Aran islands as well as Inishturk and Inishbofin off Co Galway were issued with polling cards showing today, November 28th, as the day for voting. But voting on the islands took place on Monday as is usual with elections and referendums - to ensure that ballot boxes were not delayed by bad weather while being returned to a count centre in Galway.

As a result, fewer than 20 per cent of voters on the islands cast their votes, with many others angrily claiming they had missed out because of confusion over dates. At Inishmore's biggest polling station in Kilronan, only 63 out of 307 people voted.

The decision to allow a second voting chance was taken by the Department of the Environment yesterday after representations from a number of Galway TDs, including the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, Mr Higgins, who announced the good news as Gaeilge in the Dail on behalf of his ministerial colleague, Mr Howlin.

Earlier, the Galway West TD Mr Eamon O Cuiv (FF) said he would seek legal advice if the islanders were not given a second chance to vote.

"It is a scandal that people should be denied their constitutional right to vote. People were issued with polling cards saying that polling would take place on November 28th, the same day as the rest of the country and as a result many who would have voted did not."

A Department of the Environment spokesman said the decision was permissible under the 1992 Electoral Act.

An Aran based priest, Father Dara Molloy, said islanders had been seriously put our by the confusion. Aran islanders would be campaigning for an end to the situation where they go to the polls three days before their mainland counterparts, he said.

. Voting throughout the State begins at 9 a.m. today and polling stations will remain open until 9 p.m. Voters will be asked if they approve of the proposal in the 16th Amendment of the Constitution Bill, 1996, to add the following new subsection to Article 40.4 of the Constitution:

"Provision may be made by law for the refusal of bail by a court to a person charged with a serious offence where it is reasonably considered necessary to prevent the commission of a serious offence by that person.