Madam, – Although we have a wide range of backgrounds, activities and political beliefs we share a commitment to Northern Ireland.
We are following with great interest the debate on the Lisbon Treaty. We ask the Irish electorate on October 2nd to have regard not just to their own situation but to that of all of the people on this island.
Our common membership of the European Union since 1973 has been crucial to the achievement of reconciliation and political stability in Northern Ireland, to the development of North-South relations, and to successful co-operation between the Republic and the United Kingdom.
Europe has played a key role in supporting the peace process leading to the Belfast Agreement. It has introduced ground-breaking funding of peace and reconciliation programmes and support for areas of economic and social disadvantage. Europe has led the way in addressing the needs of the Border counties and in promoting cross- Border co-operation. European Regional Funds have radically improved our common transport and energy infrastructure. The European Single Market has opened up the island to the free movement of goods, services and capital and is the bedrock of our economic future together.
Continued membership at the heart of the European Union will help us, North and South, to grow together and to face in partnership the huge economic, social and environmental challenges of the years ahead. This is enabled by our common membership of the European Union and enhanced by the new possibilities offered by the Lisbon Treaty.
A second No would bring Ireland’s continued membership of the Union into unknown territory. It would further damage Ireland’s reputation and its economic prospects, with negative knock-on effects for the North’s economy.
It risks unsettling and destabilising our common membership of the European Union which has been so helpful to us in the past and so necessary to us in the future.
We are committed to a future of positively developing relations within Northern Ireland, between North and South and between Ireland and the United Kingdom. We are convinced that a Yes vote is the best way to underpin and secure that future. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – Mary Crotty (September 23rd) is absolutely and unequivocally correct.
Just read the actual words which will be included on the referendum ballot paper next week, which the Government proposes we insert into our Constitution: “No provision of this Constitution invalidates laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted by the State, before, on or after the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, that are necessitated by the obligations of membership of the European Union . . . or prevents laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted . . . from having the force of law in the State”.
With this single sentence, our Constitution is emasculated and disempowered, rendering it subservient to the new legal entity of the European Union. With this action, we cease to be a sovereign state, and become part of a federation.
Why can nobody on the Yes side see this? Or, are there none so blind as those who will not see? – Yours, etc,
Dr DAVID HONAN,
Newbawn, Co Wexford.
A chara, – Without wishing to defend Cóir, I find the criticism of their latest poster campaign (on the ground that it exploits “vulnerable people”) ironic coming from representatives of Ireland for Europe, such as Brigid Laffan.
Is this not the same organisation whose posters feature a middle-aged woman claiming that she is “safer in Europe” – a slogan clearly aimed at manipulating women’s fears about their personal security, with no explicable relationship to the treaty itself? – Is mise,
WENDY LYON,
Queen Street, Dublin 7.
Madam, – While Michael McDowell’s summary (Opinion, 25 September) of the current German and Czech judicial thinking on the EU’s international legal status post Lisbon was correct, the fact remains that post Lisbon the EU will have: a president, a foreign minister, a constitutional court, defined borders, a permanent population, an army and a single currency. James Whitcomb Riley’s assertion that if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck, has never been more appropriate. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – I fail to recognise the vision of the European Union being increasingly presented by some advocates on the Yes side, ie, a super version of the St Vincent de Paul Society which will turn nasty if we don’t roll over and vote for the Lisbon Treaty.
This is a particularly narrow and mean-spirited vision of the EU and sounds strange in the mouths of people who would regard themselves as proud Europeans. I doubt if the founding fathers of the European project would recognise it either.
As for those who tell us we must vote Yes in order to be at the heart of Europe, I have always understood that we were already at the heart of Europe and that no one could remove us but ourselves. If this has changed in the past 15 months since the last referendum, I wish someone would spell it out for me.
This mean-spiritedness is also evident in articles and statements emanating from the Yes side which portray those who oppose the treaty at best as idiots and at worst as subversives.
Is it not possible to accept that many people remain unconvinced of the merits of the Lisbon Treaty and have valid reasons for opposing it? I doubt if bullying and name-calling will make them change their minds. – Yours, etc,