Are we selling our birthright to the EU?

Who are the real decision-makers — the EU or our Government?

Do we seriously care about the shedding of our sovereignty as we surrender our rights to farm our land and fish our waters in exchange for cheques in the post from Brussels?

Are we in the process of selling the birthright of future generations to produce their own food — the most precious and important right of all — thereby jeopardising our future security and survival as a people in an uncertain and climatically changing world?

Our three Munster MEPs, all based near Cork city, through no fault of their own, are basically ignored by the national media, like their counterparts from the other four Irish Euro constituencies.

The EU now exercises enormous control over the minute details of our daily lives, including what we eat, the manner in which it is produced, stored and displayed if it is local, while imports of similar products from outside the EU are exempt from such restrictions and conditions in many instances.

We voters are not informed on how our MEPs perform on our behalf and the stances of their respective groups in the European Parliament.

Have we compromised our neutrality without the people’s permission to a degree where it no longer has any credibility?

As the large EU states exercise their political and economic muscle in their own national interests, will Ireland, on the western periphery of the union, have to look more towards Washington than Brussels in the future?

Why have successive governments, the media and our own MEPs left us all so uninformed on EU affairs, particularly those that impact on our livelihoods? In the absence of proper information on the EU and the less than transparent role that our defence forces, on behalf of the EU, may play under NATO command, opponents of the new EU treaty will have no shortage of material for next year’s referendum campaign.

John Hassett

Croke Street

Thurles

Co Tipperary