Sir, - I write on behalf of the Referendum Commission with regard to your Editorial of June 8th entitled "The Invisible Referendum". The commission shares your concern at the lack of public debate on the referendum and welcomes the contribution which this Editorial will hopefully make to public awareness of the issues involved.
We find inexplicable, however, that the sole reference to the commission should be the dismissive statement: "Despite the lack of public awareness and the Referendum Commission's inability to fill that democratic void on this occasion .. ."
This appears inappropriate and misleading, having regard to the fact that, commencing on May 30th, the Referendum Commission published extensive advertisements in local and national newspapers, including The Irish Times, setting out the background and terms of the proposed amendment and briefly explaining them.
On June 7th, in a full-page advertisement in the national papers, including The Irish Times, and also on the previous day in the Sunday papers and throughout this week in local newspapers, the commission set out the main arguments for and against the proposed amendment.
The information contained in these two advertisements is substantially identical to the information contained in your Editorial.
The commission, in press releases issued to you and all the newspapers on its establishment, explained that it was impossible for it in the time-scale between the announcement of the terms of the amendment on May 12th and the date of polling on June 11th to carry out the more extensive information campaign which it carried out the occasion of previous referendums. Subsequent press releases indicated that the commission had issued information leaflets through a wide range of public outlets and had carried a series of radio and television broadcasts as a backdrop to its newspaper advertisements.
Having regard to all these considerations, the reference to the commission's activities in your Editorial would not appear to be fair or complete and I would ask you to publish this letter as a redress of the balance of fairness and full information. - Yours, etc.,
T. A. Finlay, Chairman, Referendum Commission, Lower Leeson Street, Dublin 2.