Public not in mood to pass second Lisbon poll - Roche

MINISTER OF State for European Affairs Dick Roche has conceded that the public mood will make it more difficult to get another Lisbon referendum passed.

"That's always a problem with a referendum, that you ask a question and you get an answer to all sorts of other issues," he said.

"One of the big challenges is to try and make sure that people differentiate their views of the government of the day on a particular issue from the issues being addressed in the referendum."

Mr Roche was speaking at a conference on the treaty in Dublin yesterday, organised by the Irish Centre for European Law. He said "mind-boggling changes" had taken place since the Irish electorate rejected the Lisbon Treaty in June. "It doesn't make life any easier," he said.

"Any political issue of the day always feeds into a referendum and that simply makes the challenge of a referendum all the more difficult.

"Referenda are difficult, they're not easy. Being in government is difficult, it's not easy. When there's an international, worldwide economic downturn you have to make decisions which are not going to be popular.

"But in the end of the day you have to make decisions which are right for the country as a whole and hopefully the people in the fullness of time will see that that is the case."

Mr Roche insisted the Government had a plan to address the issues of concern to the Irish people in relation to Lisbon.

"The plan is to be much more forthright in terms of discussion," he said.

Dr Gerard Hogan SC said some political criticisms of the treaty had been so absurdly far-fetched they barely merited analysis.

Referring to legal criticisms, he asked if there were 10 people in the country who could comfortably and immediately say what any clause in the Finance Bill actually meant.

"If we were honest we would have to say that there aren't," he added.

"If the same can be said of certain aspects of the Lisbon Treaty it's certainly not in my view a valid reason to say No. It's a lazy person's excuse."

Referring to Article 14.2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights on compulsory education, he said it could have been better drafted and was "obviously a non-idiomatic translation from the French".

Statistical analysis of voting in the referendum was presented by James MacCarthy-Morrogh of Millward Brown IMS.

"The latent pro-Europeanism of the Irish electorate cannot be depended on," he said.

Mr MacCarthy-Morrogh said quite a number of Irish people no longer believed Ireland's place was at the heart of Europe.

"I don't think they can be discounted," he said.

Issues that had arisen in previous referendums "haven't been put to bed", and there was a level of uncertainty and fluidity within the electorate.