Sir, - Your Editorial of June 21st, "Incorrect Politics", reminds me of the saying: "If the Government thought voting would change anything, they would abolish it."
The context is the Supreme Court appeal against the Coughlan High Court judgment on free referendum broadcasts. As I am no longer a member of the RTE Authority, I feel free to comment.
The predictable premise of the State (in the person of the Attorney-General) and RTE in this case is that, in the matter of sharing public broadcasting time during referendums, collectives of citizens called political parties should, by virtue of their membership and power at the polls, be allocated an amount of time to advocate their views proportionate to their size. This is regardless of whether or not they form a united front.
This is like saying that rich people should get effectively greater tax relief than wage slaves. Oops! They do?
Seriously, though, tell me this. In any formal, even undergraduate, debate have you ever known one side to be allowed 50 speakers against an opposition of, say, one speaker? I always imagined the quality of the arguments was the arbiter in such matters, not the number of guns ranged on one side or the other. Or would you have mob rule (the mob here being the majority political parties who increasingly agree about everything)?
Ironically, one of this mob's expressions - Section 31 - damn near destroyed our principal publicly-owned organ of expression, RTE, which appears to me now to be, like you, defending the indefensible. I still can only speculate on the reasons.
As one wise Supreme Court judge has observed, political parties have no constitutional function in a referendum. It is the people speaking directly.
Let us respect this principle and give each side of the argument equality in broadcasting terms - as I'm sure you aspire to do in print. If you insist on calling this "political correctness gone mad", I would remind you that you are talking about democracy. - Yours, etc.,
Bob Quinn, Beaal an Daingin, Conamara.