At least two communities in Co Kerry protested yesterday at the closing down of their polling stations in what they claimed was a further erosion of rural life.
Many of the nearly 600 voters affected in the former polling station areas of Bonane and Tureencahill did not vote in yesterday's referendum.
Last September, Kerry County Council members voted through a revision of polling districts in the county in which a large number of electoral areas merged and around 15 stations, mainly in rural areas, closed altogether.
The general aim, according to a council spokeswoman, was to abolish small stations which had fewer than 350 people voting and to achieve an optimum of over 750 to 1,000 voters per polling station.
The changes were advertised publicly, sent to TDs as well as councillors, and voted on by public representatives, she said..
However, the first that many in these communities heard was when they got their polling cards last week.
Father Declan O'Connor, parish priest of Bonane, an area of 251 registered voters between Kenmare and Glengarriff, was one of about 100 voters supporting a protest organised by the community council outside their traditional polling station at the local school yesterday.
Father O'Connor said some of his parishioners had now to make round trips of 28 miles to Kenmare because of the closure of Bonane.
"It is a further nail in the coffin for rural communities. I joined the protest today. I feel very strongly about it," Father O' Connor said.
Most of those on the electoral register in Bonane were not voting yesterday in protest.
East of Killarney, near Rathmore, the people of Tureencahill were also angry at the loss of their traditional polling station at the school. Around 40 people protested outside the school. Spokeswoman Ms Eileen Fleming said the closure was "a case of bureaucracy taking over tradition." The 284 voters, some of them elderly, had now to travel seven miles to Gneeveguilla to vote.
Kerry South TD and Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, promised yesterday to take the matter up immediately with Kerry County Council "with a view to this policy approach being reversed for the general election and subsequent elections".
Gardaí are investigating complaints against individuals and groups who erected posters outside polling stations in Co Kilkenny yesterday.
A spokesman for the returning officer in Co Kilkenny said that a number of posters, advocating both Yes and No votes, had breached the 50-metre exclusion zone under the law.