Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

This is an important point. Our base law, the Constitution, is important. We have spend a great deal of time making sure that when we have a debate on changing the Constitution, it is conducted on a fair basis. We had the McKenna judgment and others that sought properly to limit the capacity of the State to influence a vote in order that there would be a level playing field to enable people to hear objectively everybody's point of view in a transparent way above everything else. There are real concerns, not only about the volume but also the unattributed nature of so much of the advertising that is bombarding social media at an incredible cost. It is targeted and often not clear. For example, there is a website, undecided8.org, which one could confuse for being an official information website of the Referendum Commission. These are improper developments. It is clearly not in the purview of the Referendum Commission, as structured, but there is now an undeniable case for the immediate establishment of a standing electoral commission. It would be too late for this referendum, but there will be other referenda. When one sees the international debate on outside influences interfering in elections, we would be foolish to think we will not be influenced by somebody, either in elections or referenda, in the future.

My final comment on the disturbing imagery outside at least one maternity hospital is that yesterday I spoke to an "expectant father", if that is the proper phrase to use, who was bringing his wife into the hospital. The child is beyond the due date and when there was a little concern yesterday, they found it really disturbing to be confronted with that imagery when they were looking after the health of their child. We need to have standards in the debates we have. By and large, this debate has been conducted in a calm and civilised manner and I hope it will continue in that way, but this is over the line.

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