IBEC urges Yes vote in €500,000 Nice campaign

EMPLOYERS' group IBEC launched a €500,000 publicity campaign yesterday urging a Yes vote in the Nice Treaty.

IBEC said it believed a No vote would create a negative impression of Ireland and discourage inward investment. IBEC said an enlarged Europe would give Ireland access to more than 500 million people.

But former Attorney General John Rogers said the doomsday predictions about job losses and investment were totally unsustainable.

Mr Rogers accused the Government of ignoring all the serious reservations expressed about the Nice Treaty in last year's referendum campaign.

And he rejected the Taoiseach's claim that jobs, foreign investment and our future prosperity will be under threat if we say no to Nice again.

"I'm amazed by the people I see expressing doomsday situations, really telling us that the game will be up for Ireland that is entirely unsustainable," Mr Rogers told RTÉ Radio One yesterday.

He said Ireland cannot be expelled from the EU even if we say No to Nice again.

The Taoiseach and Foreign Affairs Minister Brian Cowen ignored the reservations of the Irish people about the Nice treaty last year when the referendum was defeated, Mr Rogers claimed.

Instead of telling the EU leaders in Gottenburg that the Irish people had rejected Nice, the Taoiseach rolled over and acquiesced in the decision of the people being ignored.

But a Government spokesman rejected Mr Rogers' claim that a second rejection of the Nice Treaty would not affect jobs and investment.

"We would definitely lose out to new investment and customers because the accession countries in particular would not look favourably on our rejection of Nice," he said, rejecting Mr Rogers' claim that it was undemocratic to ask Irish people to vote again for Nice.

"We are giving people the opportunity to state their views again on the basis that there were not given enough information the last time round," the spokesman added.