The Taoiseach and the main Opposition parties have been jolted into action in favour of a Yes vote in the referendum on Cabinet confidentiality, amid signs of growing opposition to the proposal. The referendum takes place on October 30th, the same day as the presidential election.
Despite his party's membership of the Coalition Government, which is proposing the amendment, the former PD chairman, Mr Michael McDowell, last night joined his former leader Mr Desmond O'Malley TD in opposing the Government proposal, on the grounds that it did not go far enough.
Mr McDowell announced that he was "launching a Vote No campaign" against the measure.
However, a Government spokesman reiterated the Taoiseach's support for a Yes vote, saying this was necessary to allow the Moriarty tribunal to carry out its work effectively. That tribunal will examine, inter alia, decisions made by Cabinets of which Mr Haughey and Mr Michael Lowry were members.
Fine Gael, Labour and Democratic Left all echoed the suggestion that a defeat of the referendum proposal would hamper the work of the forthcoming tribunals.
Mr O'Malley said earlier the proposal was too restrictive. A better idea, he suggested, would be to postpone the poll, draft a more liberal wording and hold the referendum in conjunction with next year's referendum on the Amsterdam Treaty.
There are just two weeks to the poll, in which the public will be asked to vote on an amendment to the Constitution which would modify the absolute confidentiality of Cabinet discussions, but only in very restricted circumstances.
This would be only when the High Court decided that details of a particular discussion should be disclosed if needed by a court or a tribunal of inquiry.
The proposed amendment to the Constitution was devised to modify the Supreme Court ruling, handed down as the Tribunal of Inquiry into the Beef Processing Industry was sitting, that there must be an absolute ban on the disclosure of all Cabinet discussions.
The wording now being put forward is that originally drafted and proposed by the rainbow government, which went out of office in July.
Yesterday's calls for a Yes vote followed the publication of the results of an Irish Times/MRBI opinion poll showing 72 per cent of the public believe the Government proposal to be too restrictive.
A PD spokeswoman said the party's position, as part of the Government, was to call for a Yes vote. Mr O'Malley and Mr McDowell had the right to express their own personal views, she said.
The Government is precluded by the McKenna judgment of last year from funding a campaign in favour of the proposal. Instead it is preparing a notice, for publication in national and provincial newspapers, outlining the case for and against the change.
Mr McDowell said last night that "far from improving the present situation, the change would copper fasten, with two narrow exceptions of doubtful value, the so-called absolute rule of Cabinet confidentiality".
He said it was necessary "to mobilise the somewhat drowsy media who are presently concerned with a relatively non-contentious presidential election to deal with this issue".
The Government's proposal could, for instance, prohibit a minister from explaining his or her reasons for resigning, if those reasons were related to Cabinet discussions, he added.
The amendment, if passed, could also preclude:
The reporting to the DPP or the Garda of Cabinet discussions involving the proposed commission of a serious offence such as phone-tapping.
The publication in historical or political works of any account of Cabinet discussions in matters such as the Mother and Child Scheme or in circumstances such as diaries kept by ministers during their time in office.
The availability to public scrutiny of any archives containing such matters.
He said the amendment, if passed, would bind the chairman of the Dail and Seanad, editors, journalists, historians and resigning dissenting ministers.