Anti-Lisbon movement plays down polls

ANTI-LISBON campaigners have played down the significance of the latest opinion poll showing growing support for the treaty, saying it is too early to say what the electorate will decide in a referendum which is expected in autumn.

The Government is close to securing legal guarantees from other EU states on issues like neutrality, following a meeting of foreign ministers in Brussels yesterday.

European Minister Dick Roche welcomed the findings that 52% would vote “Yes”, while 29% would vote “No”.

“I’ve always been of the view that when we get the guarantees completed and we resolve all the concerns that the Irish people had that we would get positive results. But we still have work to do,” he said.

Sinn Féin MEP Mary Lou McDonald, who opposed the treaty, said it was a “false debate” because the Government has not yet said what the legal guarantees will be.

“In the absence of the Government producing concrete results for the people, in a sense the debate is a false debate.

“To have a debate or to be taking polls in the absence of the Government actually proving that they have done anything, I think is a rather strange way to proceed,” she said.

She said the Government now wished to portray a situation where defeat of the Lisbon Treaty brought about Ireland’s economic woes.

“The fact is responsibility for our soaring unemployment and our public finances lies squarely with the Government.

“The fact also is that the Lisbon Treaty will not get us out of the economic mess. We need to get our house in order economically,” MsMcDonald said.

“But, undoubtedly, there will be those who use the economic recession and depression to browbeat those people into supporting what is a bad deal,” she added.

No-campaigner, MEP candidate in Ireland North West and Libertas leader, Declan Ganley, said: “Lisbon is an even worse formula for Ireland now than it was last June and we will have that discussion when it is due.”