AN OVERWHELMING majority of voters back the Government's plan to amend the Constitution to allow judges' pay to be cut, according to the latest Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll.
Asked how they will vote in the referendum in the autumn, 94 per cent of voters say they will vote Yes and just 3 per cent say they will vote No, with only 3 per cent having no opinion.
If this view is mirrored in the referendum the outcome will be one of the highest Yes votes in a constitutional referendum in the history of the State.
There is a remarkable uniformity of view on the issue across all regions, age groups and social classes. The only category where there is less than 90 per cent support for the constitutional change is among the best off AB voters, but even here the Yes vote is running at 88 per cent and the No vote at 8 per cent.
A striking feature of the response is the almost negligible number of voters who don’t have an opinion on the issue. This is highly unusual a few months before a referendum.
Judges were not subject to the same pay cuts as other public servants over the past two years on the advice of the former attorney general Paul Gallagher, who believed that it would contravene article 35.5 of the Constitution.
The article states that “the remuneration of a judge shall not be reduced during his continuance in office”. It will be amended to allow the pay of judges to be reduced in line with that of other public officials.
