Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I do not know what message Deputy Bannon got but the only time I saw him, he was going into Kilbeggan races. The Referendum Commission did a good job. Issues arose when some questions were asked at a press conference and it took some time to get the reference in the treaty and this was regarded as a major indication of a problem. It was a marginal question and I am not sure the answer was immediately available to anyone. In the interests of correctness and accuracy, the Referendum Commission took time to obtain the information and take advice. That was played up. There was a bit of a game going on in terms of how that was portrayed, that because a member of the Referendum Commission did not know the answer, he did know what he was talking about. The man is a capable judge who was conscientious about his task. The members of the Referendum Commission worked well and did a good job. Their job was not to advocate on one side or the other, they put the case properly and appropriately and I have no problem with the Referendum Commission. There is always this indication that if one can find a chink in an issue which arose in an interview or press conference one can draw 25 conclusions from it, which is unfair. It should be stated that this is unfair, particularly when those who use the answers afterwards misrepresent the matter anyway. It is hard to listen to this type of argumentation.

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