There was growing cause for concern that politicians were not adequately explaining the details of the Amsterdam Treaty to the electorate, the Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, has said.
Following canvassing outside churches in his Meath constituency yesterday, he said that, "given the constraints on broadcasting, there is no option but to go face to face to the people".
"At some of the churches where I spoke, nobody left at all. I would not claim that was exclusively due to my powers of oratory but was because people did want Amsterdam explained."
Political parties should return to the doorsteps and to church gates as "this is still very effective as a form of communications and people will listen".
The weekend row in Brussels over the appointment of the governor of the European Central Bank was "a depressing reminder that politics have not been ended just because we have an agreement".
Meanwhile, he described as "sinister" the IRA statement which said it did not accept the Belfast Agreement as "a solid basis for a lasting settlement" and did not acknowledge the May 22nd referendum as an exercise in self-determination.
He said the statement was part of a carefully-nuanced republican strategy to take an each-way bet on the agreement.
"The republican movement retain their fixation with Britain and the British and this flows directly from their unwillingness to accept the referendums on May 22nd as a valid act of self-determination. They still cling to the long-held view that the British have a duty to coerce the unionists into a united Ireland."
Refusing to accept the expressed view that the IRA statement was "some sort of progress because it endorses Sinn Fein's peace strategy" and described the agreement as a "significant development", he said this observation was so obvious it was nothing more than an anodyne truism.