REFERENDUM NOTEBOOK: UNLIKE PREVIOUS count days, there was a noticeable dearth of on-air spats yesterday. However, Fine Gael's normally unflappable Brian Hayes and Independent TD Luke "Ming" Flanagan did cross swords on RTÉs Today with Pat Kenny show.
Flanagan had launched a broadside against Enda Kenny, saying: “We need to go out there and renegotiate this debt . . . but the reality is the person that we’re going to send out there to renegotiate it, and Vincent Browne made the point several times throughout the referendum, that man is incapable of debating with people here in this county,” Flanagan told the show.
An incensed Hayes responded by saying such comments were “vulgar, ridiculous and just beneath you”. He then repeatedly interrupted Flanagan with “Ming, you’re a bad loser.”
There doesn’t seem to be much love lost either between Fine Gael’s Olivia Mitchell and her fellow Dublin South TD Shane Ross. The former stockbroker’s much-publicised defection to the No camp was expected to sway some voters.
However, after the vote, Mitchell tweeted: “Deputy Ross not such a game changer after all as Dublin South records highest Yes vote.”
Cliffhanger as Yes wins by five votes
FIVE ELIGIBLE No voters may be regretting not turning up to cast their ballots in Dublin Mid-West.
The constituency recorded the closest vote in the State, with the Yes side winning by just five votes.
Of the 33,275 votes cast, there were 16,590 votes in favour of the treaty compared to 16,585 votes against, which represented a 50.01 per cent/49.99 per cent split. Turnout in the constituency was 51.6 per cent.
"There's a lesson to be learned from Dublin Mid-West, and that is every vote counts," said one Twitter user.
However, the No side can take some comfort from the strength of the No vote in a constituency with four sitting Government TDs.
The narrowest referendum result on record was the 1995 referendum to legalise divorce, which was carried with a Yes vote of just 50.3 per cent.
Another cliffhanger was the 2002 abortion referendum which was defeated with a 50.4 per cent No vote.
