Number of public views on Lisbon: 30

A MERE 30 members of the public responded to the Government’s consultation with the people on their views and concerns on the Lisbon treaty.

Tánaiste Brian Cowen promised yesterday that the Government will “go out there and have a vigorous campaign” ahead of a referendum in mid-June.

Filling in for Bertie Ahern in Leaders’ Questions, Mr Cowen said he believed the referendum will be a “central, strategic and important decision for Irish people”.

But a consultation process, which closed yesterday, showed the public is not engaging in the Lisbon debate. It comes just a day after a survey found that four-fifths of people have no idea what the treaty is about.

The National Forum on Europe, set up under the Department of the Taoiseach to promote discussions on European matters, completed a consultation process with the public yesterday and said the 30 submissions was “about average” based on similar consultations.

The submissions will be put together in a report by the chair of the forum, who will present them to the Government for use on its campaign.

A spokesperson said the consultation did not cost a lot, and was “just a question of putting out advertising”.

The forum has spent €128,673 so far this year, according to figures from the Taoiseach’s department, but it has not been able to give figures on budget allocation for the Lisbon treaty.

Sinn Féin will today launch a leaflet campaign for a no vote. The party plans to target farmers in the lead-up to the world trade talks , in which farmers fear the EU will damage the Irish beef and dairy trade.

In its submission to the Forum on Europe, the Immigration Control Platform said it fears the treaty would make it impossible to deport illegal immigrants.

The anti-immigration lobby said it was “firmly opposed to the seemingly endless expansion of the EU” and especially opening the doors to “such a huge Muslim state” as Turkey.

Meanwhile, Libertas founder Declan Ganley’s attitude to Irish farmers and the common agricultural policy has been attacked as “bizarre” by MEPs.

Mr Ganley described the CAP as “one of the biggest weapons of mass destruction”, in an article published by the American right-wing think-tank, the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI). But his organisation has urged farmers to vote against the Lisbon treaty on the basis that it would affect the CAP.

Its posters have urged a vote against the treaty under the slogan, “Say no to Mandelson’s Europe”.

The article, published by the FPRI in 2003 referring to the then French and German leaders said, “Messers Schroeder and Chirac would do well to carry out an inspection of one of the biggest weapons of mass destruction being detonated in these times, our very own European common agricultural policy, which, because of its trade barriers and subsidisation, will result in thousands of deaths around the world in 2003”.