NATIONAL FORUM ON EUROPE:THE LISBON Treaty is the best the Government could have negotiated and Ireland cannot get a better deal, Taoiseach Brian Cowen told the National Forum on Europe yesterday.
"The period of negotiating the treaty is past. Those who say we should go back and negotiate a better deal know that this is not realistic. What is more, I do not believe that they mean it," he said at a plenary meeting in Dublin Castle.
"This is just a diversionary tactic from people who have mostly opposed our membership of the EU from the outset," the Taoiseach said. He was heckled on a number of occasions by treaty opponents during his address.
Lisbon "may not be perfect", he acknowledged. "But in a negotiation of 27 member states, perfection is an unattainable or unrealistic objective. To paraphrase Voltaire, in this instance perfection is the enemy of the very good."
However, Mr Cowen pointedly declined to respond to calls from the Irish Farmers' Association to guarantee Ireland would veto a world trade talks deal if it should threaten Irish farmers.
Passionately advocating a Yes vote, which he said was vital for Ireland's national interests, Mr Cowen said he was the first Taoiseach who was not yet an adult when Ireland first voted on European membership.
"Don't call me a bully-boy because I am a passionate believer in the national interest of this country being upheld by a Yes vote. Don't ask me to step back because of some political etiquette that might suit those who feel I have a stronger argument," he said.
"The evidence is with me," he went on, adding that he was confident that voters would agree when they examined the record of Ireland's 35 years of membership "taking the debits and the credits".
Criticising the No lobby, Mr Cowen pointedly attacked the fact that most people opposing the treaty hold no political office - to the annoyance of ex-Green MEP Patricia McKenna, who complained that he was not answering questions posed.
"Many of the people who talk about an absence of democracy in this treaty are not in many cases, it seems to me, people who have actually attained a democratic mandate themselves," he added.
"We who have a democratic mandate are described by people who don't have a political mandate as political elites.
"I am not in the least elitist. And none of the people who vote for me are elitist. Far from it, thanks be to God.
"When we joined what is now the Union we did it with our eyes open and with the dire warnings of many people ringing in our ears. Under the visionary leadership of Seán Lemass and then Jack Lynch, we put our faith in a generous and outward-looking future. Today, there is no credible commentator who can question that the economic and social progress which our country has achieved has been fundamentally based on our membership of the Union," the Taoiseach said.
It was "a very recent trick" for people who have opposed every single element of our growing involvement in the Union to claim that they are pro-EU but against this treaty, he said.
"Equally, we are now hearing voices which claim to love the Union but be against this treaty. However, their criticisms of the treaty are all based on the fundamental premise that the Union wants to damage Ireland: that it is a destructive bureaucracy that wants to militarise us, to ruin our economy, to destroy our sovereignty or to introduce a wide range of other damaging changes," Mr Cowen said.
People were fully entitled to have a bad view of the Union, but they were not entitled to pretend they were supportive of the Union while accusing it of malign intent towards Ireland.
He added: "The Eurosceptic ideology makes much play of the idea that the EU is the enemy of national sovereignty. The truth is that the Union is the greatest enabler of national sovereignty in our history. Instead of looking on from the outside as power blocs took the decisions affecting our future, we have been able to be at the table shaping these decisions and to ensure that others respect our interests."
Ireland's experience shows the EU "never threatened our independence", but rather has actually secured Irish independence, allowing it to build a successful state in charge of its own destiny, the Taoiseach noted.
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