The Lisbon treaty - This time focus on the real issues

WE HAVE an unfortunate, unenviable record on referendums. Not because we voted in any particular way, or that we rejected or endorsed any one proposition over another, but rather that we allowed all sorts of irrelevant issues to take centre stage during pre-poll debates.

These emotional red herrings are our version of a minor skirmish in the culture wars that have divided America for much of the past two decades. Sadly, just as in America, they have caused bitter and lasting division in this small, interdependent country.

Just as it is embarrassing to be reminded of some of the extreme and inaccurate slogans designed to intimidate during the divorce referendums all those years ago, it is difficult now to review the debate that preceded the Lisbon vote last summer without being worried by the arrogance and presumption of too many of those who advocated accepting the treaty.

We had ministers admitting that they had not read it, another was unable to tell us how many EU commissioners there were. The Referendum Commission fluffed their lines and did considerable damage to the prospects of the treaty being endorsed. Dissent, no matter how well founded, was dismissed with a we-know-best shrug rather than a powerful, winning counter argument.

Indeed, the campaign was used as a vehicle by individual politicians to promote themselves. Who will ever forget those pathetic, mute, air-brushed portrait posters that were supposed to sway a prickly electorate? Gombeenism in place of a professional political campaign; gombeenism that created the void that allowed all sorts of lunacies to stand unchallenged.

Put simply, the Government and their fellow travellers took it as a done deal and did not do their homework. And, though the mistakes have been acknowledged, it seems we may have the chance to do it all again.

EU leaders yesterday signed off on proposals that would allow a second vote on the Lisbon treaty to be held next October after the European and local elections. Taoiseach Brian Cowen had little option other than to accept the poisoned chalice.

An EU Council meeting in Brussels was told of commitments, or ongoing work towards commitments, that the French presidency hopes will be enough to secure, at the second time of asking, ratification of the Lisbon treaty in Ireland.

Foreign Minister Micheál Martin pointed out that a lot of work remains to be done before a package that might satisfy some of the 862,415 people who voted against the treaty last June (752,451 in favour) can even be considered as the basis for a second Lisbon vote.

Undoubtedly that work will be done, and the time will come when we all have to pass judgment on it.

Let us hope that in the interim the debate is confined to the relevant issues and the consequences of whatever verdict is reached.

The stakes are far, far too high to again indulge in irrelevancies or wishful thinking.