Cowan accuses No lobby of telling lies

FOREIGN Minister Brian Cowan yesterday accused the No campaign of lying to voters when they say EU enlargement can go ahead without the Nice Treaty.

The minister, who now heads up the Nice campaign after the resignation of PJ Mara, briefed his foreign affairs

colleagues in Brussels yesterday on the state of the campaign.

"This claim that the Amsterdam protocol will let five countries into the EU without the changes set out in the Nice Treaty has been blown out of the water. A No vote in Ireland will delay enlargement and in political and legal terms it is not clear how you would proceed in the absence of the treaty," he said.

The final report setting out how many of the applicant countries are ready to join will be issued by the European Commission on October 9.

Mr Cowen said it looked likely that this report will give the go-ahead to 10 countries, but the next step of actual enlargement would then depend on Ireland ratifying the Nice Treaty.

"The Treaty of Nice is indispensable in making sure enlargement is complete by the end of the year," he said.

Meanwhile, FF backbenchers have warned the Taoiseach and Government ministers that they must tell the truth about budget cuts or they could lose the Nice referendum. Serious damage has been done to the trust between the electorate and Government and they now need to be upfront about the cuts, Deputy John McGuinness said.

"The electorate cannot be taken for fools when ministers talk about downward adjustments they should be honest and call them cuts," Deputy McGuinness said.

The Carlow-Kilkenny backbencher said he was just reflecting the anger he was getting on the doorsteps, where all the people want to talk about is the economy and the Flood Tribunal revelations.

"The Taoiseach needs to sharpen up on Nice and spell out what the domestic economic difficulties are and what he intends to do about it otherwise there is a big danger we will lose the campaign," he said.

He said the Taoiseach and Cabinet have lost the plot and derailed the Nice campaign by indecisive leadership. Cork Fianna Fáil backbencher Billy Kelleher said the Government needed to clear the air about proposed cuts because there was a lot of confusion and anger among the electorate.

Clare Fianna Fáil backbencher Tony Killeen said the Government needed to tackle its credibility problem, because a large section of voters felt they were duped in the general election. A Government spokeswoman said the Taoiseach addressed all the issues about the Nice campaign at the press conference on Sunday and had nothing further to add.