Noonan confident EU treaty referendum would be passed

Finance Minister Michael Noonan has said he is confident the Irish people will pass a referendum on European treaty changes if one is required.

Eurozone members struck a fiscal union deal aimed at solving the debt crisis and saving the euro, but it requires a European Union treaty change.

To approve such a change to Ireland’s constitution, the decision may have to go to a public vote.

“If a referendum is necessary we won’t resign from it,” said Mr Noonan.

“We will campaign very strongly in favour of it. We will explain to the people what the issues are.

“It comes down to a very simple issue – if we want to continue in the euro or not.

“When faced with that question I think the Irish people will pass such a referendum.”

The deal was struck by all eurozone states, with the exception of Britain, at a key summit in Brussels last week.

Ireland’s Attorney General Marie Whelan will have to forensically examine the deal to determine whether a referendum is legally required.

The union will mean stricter budget and debt rules imposed upon states and penalties for those who breach them.

“The situation in Ireland is at once simple and complicated at the same time,” Mr Noonan told Bloomberg.

“If it requires a change in our constitution we will need a referendum. Other European countries can change their constitution by weight of a majority in parliament.

“We can’t do that in Ireland. It must go to the people.”

The Finance Minister met with UK Chancellor George Osborne to discuss the summit, in which Prime Minister David Cameron was the only leader of all 27 states to vote against forming a fiscal union.

He said he could not support it because its terms failed to guarantee London’s financial services the protection he demanded.

Despite this, Mr Noonan said the UK would remain a close friend of Ireland’s.

“I would simply say that it was a pity that what was agreed last week in Brussels did not enjoy the support of all 27 EU member states,” he went on.

“Whatever about that particular debate – which is a matter for the Government here in London – my focus and most people’s was on the more immediate elements to the package agreed by EU leaders last week.”

However Fianna Fáil finance spokesman Michael McGrath said the minister's comments are an insult to the intelligence of the Irish people.

"Michael Noonan's extraordinary intervention on the question of whether or not there should be a referendum on the new proposed intergovernmental agreement is an insult to Irish people's intelligence, " Deputy McGrath said.

Deputy McGrath reiterated his party's position that the deal concluded on Friday "actually undermines the euro project".

" It tries to solve the wrong problem and abandons the principles that made Europe strong," he said.

"To try now to silence legitimate debate and position the referendum question as a 'yes' or 'no' on euro membership is a perverse and unacceptable distortion of the facts.

"It is the same approach that the Government tried on the Oireachtas Inquiries referendum and will meet with a similar response."

Meanwhile, the European Commission has claimed Ireland is on target with the implementation of its EU/IMF programme.

The commission welcomed last week’s Budget in which the Finance Minister and Public Expenditure Minister made a €3.8bn adjustment.

But it lowered its growth forecast for next year from 1.9% to 1%, saying the near-term economic outlook had worsened on a global scale.