KEVIN G.A. SMITH,
Madam, - Now that the Nice Referendum is over, and leaving aside all Yes and No considerations, does a less than 50 per cent turnout bode well for the health of democracy in this country?
Take account of the fine weather on polling day; the involvement of high-profile politicians and civil servants from the EU and elsewhere; a hard and lengthy canvass by all political parties and most interested bodies; widespread publicity and significant financial expenditure. - Yours, etc.,
KEVIN G.A. SMITH,
Weston,
Newbridge,
Co Kildare.
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Madam, - Restored to our rightful position as the "Great Europeans", we bask in an afterglow of self-congratulation, already looking forward to 2005, when yet again the Irish electorate, and only the Irish electorate, will act as the final arbiters on the future direction of the EU. This arrogation of power under the guise of Constitutional imperative by a country with less than 1 per cent of the EU population makes Saddam's recent referendum look almost like an exercise in true democracy. Am I alone in cringing at the expressions of gratitude from the accession countries to the Irish people for deigning to admit them to the Union when our 14 fellow members had already done so, without the fanfare attendant on each Irish plebiscite?
There is a need for two further referendums.
The first would amend the Constitution to remove the necessity for any further referendum to ratify EU Treaties and confer on the government of the day the power to do so on behalf of the Irish people. The Nice debacle should have taught us that a Constitution properly deals in broad parameters and the increasingly technical minutiae of EU Treaties are not best determined by a bewildered electorate open to manipulation by an unholy alliance of cranks, crackpots and naysayers, blurring of the lines by totally irrelevant local issues and the understandable urge to register a misplaced protest vote.
The second referendum would tackle the neutrality issue head on. The manner in which it was grafted on to the Nice debate troubled a growing proportion of the electorate which has come to realise that, whether we like it or not, neutrality has now been rendered obsolete.
Writing in your paper on Monday, the Taoiseach heralded Nice as "a vote on the sort of country we see ourselves as being and the role we see ourselves playing within Europe and the world". Not quite. That vote will be the vote on neutrality, but almost certainly, a matter for another Taoiseach on another day. - Yours, etc.,
WILLIAM BRANDON,
Creggs,
Roscommon.
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Madam, - Ireland, that irritating pimple on the mighty Eurobuttock, has finally burst and released the Treaty of Nice. Hurray! And what a photo opportunity for the potation of plenty of patronising pints of porter in Poland.
Amid all the backslapping, however, there is a distinct smell of burning bridges and the words "birthright" and "mess of pottage" linger in one's mind. Still, we must be positive and remember that we will retain the right to make choices, even if those choices are limited to becoming either the North Dakota of the United States of Europe - or its Mississippi. - Yours, etc.,
EAMON SWEENEY,
South Hill,
Dartry,
Dublin 6.
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Madam, - How hyperbolical! Some 69 per cent of the electorate either did not vote or voted against the Nice Treaty.
How, therefore, can The Irish Times credibly describe a 31 per cent favourable vote as a "big Yes vote", "convincing Yes vote", and "emphatic result"?
Surely the spinning should be left to the spin doctors! - Yours, etc.,
ADRIAN CARROLL,
Gladstone Street,
Clonmel,
Co Tipperary.