THERE WAS a generation of young people growing up in Ireland, "who don't remember not being in Europe", National Forum on Europe chairman Maurice Hayes told the Lisbon subcommittee at Leinster House yesterday.
Invited to address the subcommittee on the issue of Ireland's future in the EU, Mr Hayes expressed concern at the extent to which the referendum results last June showed that anti-Lisbon voters were "stratified and regionalised", with farmers, young people, women and blue-collar workers featuring strongly.
Meetings organised by the forum had been well attended but, although you could get people into a meeting about Europe, he said it was "very difficult to get them to talk about Europe". Other issues, especially local ones, tended to dominate.
He pointed out that "plenty of information" was available to the public during the Lisbon referendum but there was "almost so much that people found it difficult to take it in".
He added: "If you are going to have sufficient information it's going to have to be delivered by somebody that people believe."
Fine Gael TD Billy Timmins expressed concern at the influence of British media in Ireland on EU issues.
He referred to an article in yesterday's Irish Timesin which columnist Sarah Carey described being prevented from writing in favour of the Lisbon Treaty when she was previously contributing to the Sunday Times.
"Where does that leave freedom of the press? I find it very disturbing," Mr Timmins said.
Mr Hayes replied: "I don't want to be drawn into a comment if you don't mind."
Speaking more generally, he suggested that to some extent the EU debate in Britain had spilled over into Ireland through British media available here.
"Is it being used by British Eurosceptics as a surrogate for the debate they didn't have in Britain?" he asked.
There had been no referendum in Britain, and Mr Hayes suggested this had led to a certain amount of "seepage" on to the Irish political scene.
Labour TD Joe Costello said he disagreed with a comment by Mr Timmins to the effect that The Irish Timeswas a pro-Lisbon newspaper because, during the referendum, the paper had published articles on both sides of the argument.
Martin Territt, head of the European Commission representation in Ireland, said the Lisbon referendum campaign had raised a lot of fears, "many, I believe, unfounded". Yet at the same time recent polls had shown that many Irish and EU citizens would like to see more EU action in such areas as climate change, energy supply, crime and security, globalisation and migration.
"The commission believes that the Lisbon Treaty would have helped to address many of these issues. The problem is that the baby has now been thrown out with the bath water.
"Without the Lisbon Treaty, EU action will be hamstrung by heavier procedures and less clarity about what we can or cannot do. That means a less effective response on the issues Irish and other EU citizens in general care about.
"Ironically, the Lisbon Treaty would also have addressed the fears about erosion of sovereignty. It would have delineated the competences of the EU versus those of member states and made the frequently-talked-about 'competence creep' less likely in the future.
"It would also have improved democracy and ensured more involvement of citizens in decision-making," Mr Territt said.
