MR Justice Bairington said he did not see how the Supreme Court could interfere with the decision of the Divisional Court of the High Court that Mr Hanafin had not proved, even on the balance of probability, that the referendum result was materially affected by the Government's unconstitutional conduct.
This was essentially a matter for the Divisional Court, which had heard the evidence of Mr Hanafin's petition.
Even assuming Mr Hanafin's experts could have accurately assessed the movement of public opinion in the course of the referendum campaign, the vital question was what happened on the day of the poll.
Even assuming one could measure the effect of the Government's advertising campaign in the weeks before November 17th, a totally new factor entered the situation on November 17th when the Supreme Court ruled that the Government advertising campaign was unconstitutional.
It seemed impossible to assess on any scientific basis what effect the Supreme Court ruling, and the reaction of the Government and the various parties to it, had upon public opinion.
The most important week of the campaign was undoubtedly the last one. But whether the Government's advertising campaign, viewed in the light of the Supreme Court ruling, had a positive or negative impact on voters appeared to him to be impossible to estimate.
Mr Justice Barrington said there was no suggestion that the will of the people was overborne by any form of coercion. There was no suggestion that the material placed before the people by the Government in the course of the advertising campaign was untrue.
No one had come forward to say he was misled or would have voted in a different way but for the Government's advertising campaign.
The Government was guilty of a constitutional wrong. But this wrong was discovered before the referendum and the people voted with full knowledge of what the Government had done.