Anti-Lisbon campaigners have been accused by Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin of making “ridiculous” claims in relation to the EU guarantees secured after the Treaty was rejected last year.
At a Fianna Fáil news conference in Dublin today, Mr Martin recalled that in the first Lisbon referendum “every lamppost in the this country had a poster from one of the No campaigns calling on people to vote No to save a Commissioner”.
A Yes vote on Friday would guarantee “the continuation of our automatic right to a Commissioner”. This and other assurances represented, “the most significant set of guarantees which have ever been given to a member-State”.
The Minister said that, in response to these guarantees, “the anti-EU campaigns have been reduced to saying that they are worthless”.
“They are directly claiming that there is some form of anti-Irish conspiracy going on, where 26 other states have given guarantees which they intend to dishonour,” he said. “This is ridiculous, but people deserve to know why they should trust these guarantees.”
He insisted that Europe “honours its word” and has never dishonoured a similar guarantee.
“Ireland itself has had a similar guarantee in the treaty texts since 1992 about the right to life and the Commission, the Court of Justice and every institution of the Union has fully and comprehensively honoured this guarantee,” Mr Martin said.
“Secondly, the process being used to enact these guarantees is well-established in international law and is similar to the one we used for the Good Friday Agreement.”
Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey said the referendum was “not a vote about the past but about the future” for Ireland.
“A lot of detail has been provided behind the economic case for a Yes vote but it is probably very easily summarised: it’s about confidence, it’s about influence and reform,” he said.
“In relation to confidence, it has been confirmed time and time again that a No vote will damage investor confidence in the future direction of Ireland – while a Yes vote will support that confidence,” Mr Dempsey said.
Asked about the impact of the Fás controversy on the referendum campaign, Mr Martin said: “Clearly there is a lot of anger out there in relation to that situation but again I would come back to the research which is indicating that people are distinguishing between the domestic political situation and the Lisbon Treaty itself.”
