It was the first time she had heard "real passion" in the Nice referendum debate, the former government minister, Senator Mary O'Rourke, said at the launch of a new organisation, Women for a Yes Vote, in Dublin yesterday.
Up to now discussion had been dominated by issues such as qualified majority voting. "What we are about today is for women," she said. "Europe has been hugely important for women and beneficial to them." She recalled working as a teacher before the equal pay directive from Brussels, when male colleagues doing the same work would get 25 per cent more money.
Chairing the crowded news conference, Ms Olive Braiden said all the members were attending in their personal capacity. "We have no political links." They were affiliated to the Irish Alliance for Europe but were not in receipt of funds. "We have no money of any sort."
In an attack on the No to Nice Campaign she said these were the same people who "at every step" had opposed beneficial changes for women and was "effectively comprised" of the anti-abortion group Youth Defence. The newly-elected Independent TD Ms Marian Harkin said a Yes vote would help to ensure a better economic and social future. She accused anti-Nice campaigners of "scaremongering" about a flood of migrant workers from the new member-states.
Ms Harkin, who represents Sligo-Leitrim in the Dáil, highlighted the impact of the European Union on rural women and the "extraordinary" role of EU funding in driving an "equality agenda" in rural areas. The novelist Deirdre Purcell said: "I represent nobody here but myself," but she had joined the group for "reasons to do with heart as well as head". She was very excited by the European project, despite its shortcomings. "It is about turning our swords into ploughshares and bringing us all together."
It was wrong to play "ring-a-rosy" and tell other countries, "You can't join yet".