October vote on Lisbon as Cowen wins guarantees

THE Taoiseach said he expects Ireland’s second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty will be held in early October after securing the legal guarantees the Government sought.

After a gruelling 12 hours of negotiations over the past two days, mainly with Britain, Brian Cowen said he had got the response he wanted.

He described the guarantees on taxation, neutrality and ethical issues as “cast- iron” and said they will be incorporated into a protocol to be attached to the EU treaty after Lisbon comes into force.

Mr Cowen said the guarantees did not change the treaty itself — a key requirement by all the other member states to avoid having to re-ratify a document that was contentious throughout the EU.

But the guarantees did clarify that Ireland could continue to set its own position on taxation, neutrality and ethical issues such as abortion, he said.

However, anti-Lisbon campaigners said the Government had missed an opportunity to secure improvements to the treaty.

Sinn Féin, the only Dáil party opposing Lisbon, accused the Government of “tremendous spin and hype” to give the impression something had been achieved when “not one iota, word or comma” of the treaty had been altered.

Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald said the Government was performing a “political sleight of hand” to present the same document to the public again.

The Government will decide the date of the second referendum next weekend, with Mr Cowen saying he looked forward to a mature debate “free of scares, myths and misinformation” which marred last year’s campaign.

“We expect we would be ready to have the referendum in early October,” he added, while Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny suggested the best date would be October 2 to avoid the campaign being complicated by Government and opposition clashes on the budget.

Both Mr Kenny and Labour leader Eamon Gilmore played down fears that public anger with the Government could result in a second no vote.

“Nobody wants to get rid of this Government more than I do,” Mr Gilmore said. “But it would be irresponsible to take the view that we should do something that would be bad for the country simply because we want to give a kick to the Government.”

Even if the Irish vote yes, the Polish and Czech presidents have still to sign their countries’ ratifications into law and Czech President Vaclav Klaus has said he will not sign until after the Irish have voted in favour.