President Sarkozy’s visit - Time to get real about Lisbon vote

NOT since Margaret Thatcher’s intransigence and contempt for the republican cause, peaceful or violent, made her the Provos’ best recruiting sergeant in the 1980s has the intervention of a foreign political leader in Irish affairs had such potential for disaster as yesterday’s visit by the French President Nicholas Sarkozy.

Ever since he told a private meeting of his UMP party that “the Irish would have to vote on Lisbon again”, he has been more of a hindrance than a help.

So much so, that he has been at the receiving end of a barely concealed rebuke from Taoiseach Brian Cowen.