FOREIGN Minister
Michéal Martin has urged people to vote yes in the
Lisbon Treaty to help Ireland weather the recession.
Mr Martin told the MacGill Summer School in Glenties
it was "not easy" to convince people losing their
jobs and anxious about the future that the Lisbon
Treaty should matter to them. "But there is no doubt
that our membership of the eurozone has helped us
weather the effects of this severe economic storm,"
said Mr Martin. It is my sincere hope that this
coming campaign will be centred on the facts of the
Treaty and Ireland’s binding legal guarantees."
However, earlier during Wednesday's session at the
summer school, Inishowen's Councillor Pádraig
MacLochlainn strongly criticised the Government’s
announcement that it would re-run the Lisbon Treaty
referendum on October 2. Cllr Mac Lochlainn, who was
national director of Sinn Féin's no campaign last
year, accused the Taoiseach of failing the people of
Ireland and Europe.
“When we come to vote on this matter in October, we
will be voting on exactly the same Treaty as was
rejected on June 12, 2008. No amendments, no
additions, no deletions. Exactly the same Lisbon
Treaty as was rejected by 53% of the electorate," he
said.
"The so-called ‘legally binding guarantees’ are in
fact nothing more than clarifications of the Lisbon
Treaty. For those of us who took the time to read it
the first time round, they tell us nothing new, and
in no way alter the content or our analysis of the
Treaty. They are simply an attempt to provide the
Government with sufficient political cover to re-run
a referendum on a Treaty that has already been
democratically rejected by the people." |
