THE DÁIL and Seanad should enact legislation to differentiate between the type of European Union treaty changes that required a referendum in Ireland and those that did not, former taoiseach John Bruton said in Leinster House yesterday.
Speaking to the Oireachtas subcommittee on Ireland's future in the EU, Mr Bruton said the purpose of such legislation would be to clarify the position, not alone for Ireland but also for her European partners.
The legislation could be referred to the Supreme Court to assess its constitutionality. Article 26 of Bunreacht na hÉireann, the Constitution, provides that the President may, after consultation with the Council of State, refer Bills to the Supreme Court.
Since the Crotty judgment on the 1986 Single European Act, referendums have been held on every major EU treaty. But Mr Bruton said: "The Crotty judgment doesn't tell you everything, it tells you very little, in fact."
Now head of the European Commission delegation in Washington, Mr Bruton said US political reaction to the Irish rejection of the Lisbon Treaty last June was "one of complete bafflement".
"The Americans just couldn't understand how Ireland could, not once but twice, reject a European treaty," he said. "I was able to explain that Ireland remained strongly pro-European."
Responding, Sinn Féin MEP for Dublin, Mary Lou McDonald, said she had a "suspicion" that the subcommittee and Mr Bruton's speech were "part of the choreography" to secure the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.
Objecting to her remarks as contradicting the subcommittee's terms of reference, the chairman, Senator Paschal Donohoe, said: "It is not my intention at all for this committee to be used in such a way."
Accusing Ms McDonald of misrepresenting him, Mr Bruton said: "I am not a participant in any choreography. I have not consulted anybody about what I would say."
Former senior diplomat Noel Dorr said in a statement to the subcommittee earlier that he hoped the President would, at some future point, be given the right to refer a draft treaty to the Supreme Court, "for a ruling on whether or not it was necessary to hold a referendum to amend the Constitution to allow it to be ratified". While it was right that the Irish people should feel a sense of "ownership" of the Constitution, "I do not think they should be asked to vote in a referendum on the complex legal text of an EU treaty unless it is really necessary to do so."
Former European commissioner David Byrne said the result of the Lisbon referendum caused "dismay and incomprehension" in Europe: the country that had gained most from EU membership had blocked progress.
