EU AND EURO ZONE:IRELAND WOULD find it very difficult to maintain its link to the EU and the euro zone if it votes against the Lisbon Treaty a second time, the Minister of State for Science and Technology has warned.
Conor Lenihan has also said there is a need for political reform to enable TDs to spend more of their time explaining national interests such as Europe rather than concentrating so much effort on local interests.
“The implications of a No vote basically threaten our membership of the union and the currency zone in the medium term,” said Mr Lenihan at an EU science ministers meeting in Brussels yesterday.
He said it would be very difficult to maintain the link with the EU and the euro in the event of a second No vote because the 26 other member states had clearly signalled they wanted to progress the EU in a different way.
He singled out the EU and the euro as both essential elements of “stability” for Ireland. He also criticised No campaigners as “deluding themselves” if they thought a No vote would lead to a further renegotiation of the Lisbon Treaty.
“I don’t think people fully understand this yet. If it’s a No vote, it has enormous implications for our country, particularly the policy decision made by Seán Lemass in the 1960s [to seek EU membership],” he said. “Voting No would mean we will be in a more sceptical situation in regard to Europe than our nearest neighbour Britain and that is a very dangerous situation for us to be in.”
Mr Lenihan cited the example of the EU’s €50 billion research budget as a key benefit to Ireland. He said Irish firms and institutions had won €107 million in funding during the first two years of the 2007-2013 programme.
He said it was very difficult to explain the benefits of multilateral institutions such as the EU to people and he agreed with comments made by former Irish European commissioner Peter Sutherland, who claimed this week Irish politicians were “too parochial” to explain the benefits of the EU.
“To a certain extent, our political system has become very narrow and parochial in its ambition and outlook and we need to look at this because, at the end of the day, it’s the public representatives that need to lead the people . . . someone, somewhere is failing to communicate,” he said.
He said there was a need to reform the way the Dáil worked so TDs could carry out their national duties and not just focus on local issues. “I’m not being prissy here. I’m the hardest constituency-working TD in the Dáil I reckon, but there needs to be – if we are to promote the national interest in relation to Europe – a Dáil that has a focus on that.”
This could involve cutting the number of TDs, which would require a referendum, but also changing Dáil procedures, which were not attractive for the public.
“You can’t blame the public for not watching political TV . . . it’s not exactly a big channel changer. It’s not riveting.”