It has been
revealed that a major error occurred in the publication of the details of the
Children’s referendum. The text of the proposed 31st amendment was issued in
both official languages under the heading of the Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights Bill, as being an amendment to Article 40 of the Constitution rather than Article 42 as indicated
in the rest of the text. This
error immediately raised alarm bells because Article 40 is the one that protects
the Right to Life of the unborn.
European
Life Network brought the matter to the attention of
a number of TD’s and Senators who investigated it further. The Bills Office, attempting to play significance of the problem down,
responded that the content page contained the error and therefore is currently
being reprinted. They also claimed that this page has no effect on the ratified
text of the bill which was not changed or amended in any way. They also claim that
this error does not effect the referendum. The Bills office spokesperson also said that the
incorrect document was being withdrawn from circulation and removed from the
various websites to be replaced with the corrected version.
The result of this problem is that there are now two texts designated as the
“Thirty-First Amendment” to the Constitution. One called The Children’s Bill and the other
the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Bill. What a mess! two weeeks before a significant
referendum which will make major changes to the Irish Constitution and two
versions of the text are still in circulation.
A printing error could be accepted on a
non-official document. But this is an official document
carrying the sovereign seal – the seal of official Government documents. And it was also on the official
Oireachtas website.
A Constitutional
Referendum is too important to accept such bungling. This referendum
should be abandoned now.
The other issue
which arises from this is the qusetion of what alterations were going to be proposed to the electorate in
the other version of the 31st amendment to the Irish Constitution. It has
emerged that the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Bill that proposed
amending article 40 was a private Members Bill by a Labour TD Kevin Humphries,
which has best been described by Family Solidarity as 'pernicious' and 'nasty'.
The other pernicious bill Thirty-First Amendment of the constitution (Economic, Social and Cultural Rights) Bill 2012) if it ever sees the light of day, is a nasty bit of goods.as a result of this bungling the Christian Democrat Party have issued a press release calling on the Irish people to VOTE NO unless the government to abandons the referendum forthwith.
CALL FOR EVERY CITIZEN TO VOTE NO IN REFERENDUM ON NOVEMBER 10thChristian Democrats HAS DISCOVERED a major problem with the referendum due to be held on 10th November next. We have put out a public call to have the Referendum stopped, but, if it cannot be stopped, we are advising every citizen to vote NO because:1. There are two Thirty-First Amendment to the Constitution bills. One calls for an amendment to Article 40 – the personal rights of every Citizen in the country, and one calls for deletion of Art. 42.5 and adding a new Article 42A.2. Both Bills have been in circulation in print version through Post offices on Government official headed paper, and both have been and still are available on the Government official web-site, www.oireachtas.ie.Which one are we really voting for?We don't know, and as we don't know, WE MUST VOTE NO!We now calling on everyone to go out and vote no on November 10th next.Christian Democrats is a registered political party and an approved body for the purposes of the Referendum. Mrs. Nora Bennis is the Authorised Officer for the purposes of the Referendum and can be contacted at 061-325532 or 061326599 or 0876486679.End.
