Treaty voters ignored a ‘qualified’ adviser

IN the run-up to the Lisbon Treaty referendum, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny was castigated in the Dáil and told that he was not qualified to comment about the public disquiet that surrounded the disclosures at the Mahon Tribunal concerning the financial affairs of Bertie Ahern.

This inappropriate behaviour came from none other than Taoiseach Brian Cowen.

In the course of the referendum campaign that followed, the Taoiseach displayed an in-depth knowledge of what was and what was not contained in the Lisbon Treaty. Significantly, however, he confessed that he had not read the treaty in full.

These were the extraordinary circumstances in which Mr Cowen went about advising the electorate on how they should vote in the referendum implying, as he repeatedly did, that he was a ‘qualified’ person for the purpose of the advise he was giving.

The lessons to be learned from the rejection of the treaty should have beneficial rather than detrimental consequences for this country.

Forfeiting too much of our autonomy to Brussels might well, in time, prove to be even worse than rule from London or Rome ever was.

An educated young electorate knows only too well now that a nation of sheep soon begets a government and indeed a church of wolves.

Pat Daly

3 Suncourt

Midleton

Co. Cork