FINE GAEL LEADERS:FINE GAEL leader Enda Kenny and four of his predecessors expressed confidence yesterday that the treaty referendum would be passed when voters go to the polls tomorrow.
Urging a Yes vote, Mr Kenny, supported by former taoisigh Dr Garret FitzGerald and John Bruton, along with Alan Dukes and Michael Noonan, said: "I regard Thursday as a moment of truth for Ireland. It really is a moment of truth."
Former taoiseach and Fine Gael leader Liam Cosgrave was not present at the press conference. Mr Cosgrave has declined public engagements since he retired from politics.
Mr Kenny said the No campaign had made "a series of false, baseless and untruthful" allegations about the treaty that had taken "a lot of time to deal with, but they are now".
He criticised French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner for his comments on Monday when he said the Irish would be the first to suffer if the treaty was rejected.
"The Irish electorate are well able to make up their own minds on this. I regard his comments as unwelcome at this time, but they are not going to have any influence on the decision of the people."
Dr FitzGerald said the Yes campaign had started a bit late.
"The No campaign was out for a long time. Those who are trying to defeat this had a long time in which to invent all kinds of arguments.
"It is much easier to worry people than to reassure them. A lot of damage was done in that time. I think it has been won back since then. I think we probably are on the road towards getting agreement."
Dr FitzGerald said the process of answering the questions did not start early enough. They had gone too long without being contradicted or challenged.
"So the campaign might have been better, but we are where we are. And I think that we are moving to the point where it will be adopted, thank goodness, because I hate to think where Ireland would stand in the future if we were seen in a totally negative light after being seen positively by the people of Europe for 35 years."
Describing the European Union as "the most successful peace project in history", Mr Bruton, who had sent a video message to the press conference because he was at an EU meeting in Slovenia, said it had delivered "more than 50 years of peace".
The Lisbon Treaty was a difficult document to understand, he said. "But most legal documents are complex. If you look at your own deed of conveyance it is complex. You wouldn't do it on your own. It is a complex legal document over which the most expert legal experts have pored over with a fine comb. It is complex, but also solidly based."
Mr Noonan, who described himself as "a foot soldier" in the campaign, said the referendum campaign had been "the most difficult" he was involved in.
"It's difficult because you can't present it to the people as Albert Reynolds did, that if you vote for this, eight billion is going to flow through the economy."
Support for the Yes campaign had started to grow only following last Friday's Irish Times/TNS mrbi opinion poll which showed that backing for the No side had increased.
"The poll knocked the complacency not so much out of the political parties but out of the people disposed to vote Yes.
"There was a very strong surge to the Yes side. I am quite confident that it will be carried and by a significant number. But if I was talking to you before last weekend it didn't look that way," said Mr Noonan.
Accusing the No campaign of making "fanciful arguments", Mr Dukes said: "We have seen the most extraordinary claims made about family law, micro-chipping children, a Chinese policy of not more than one child per family. They have all withered on the vine very quickly.
"Everybody has seen that they were so farcical that they had no reality."
