A FORMER secretary general of the Department of Foreign Affairs has called on RTÉ to reformat the way it presents information about the Lisbon Treaty in the run-up to the second referendum on October 2nd by presenting “extended and well-structured television debates”.
Noel Dorr, who was addressing the Merriman Summer School in Ennis yesterday on the subject of Global shifting Sands: Ireland in a changing World, said RTÉ could play a major part in informing the public about the treaty and its issues.
Mr Dorr said it should move away from what he described as the standard format involving a single presenter dealing with a heated and confusing tit-for-tat argument between the Yes and No sides.
“Instead, it should organise three structured debates in which a panel of three would forensically question a platform of three from each side of the debate before a small studio audience.”
He said experience in previous referendums had shown that the tit-for-tat format generated heat rather than light “and this leaves the viewer confused”.
“I think this kind of structured debate would be very helpful to viewers who genuinely want to know what the treaty is about – and certainly more helpful than the heated, simplistic and confusing arguments across a table with a single moderator which we have seen too often in the past.” He said the European Union, in which the sovereignty of members was pooled “in carefully specified areas”, was something new in international life and EU membership was now integral to Ireland’s political and economic life.
Addressing the broader summer school’s theme of Are we there yet? Facing the future anew, he said the resolved issues that gave a sense of completion to the State were sovereignty, the North and economic development.
“So, notwithstanding our present major economic difficulties, we can now say, ‘yes, we are there’.”
Ireland had a common interest, shared by all small states, in working for an ordered and just international system and co-operating on complex global issues.
“But more than this we also have distinctive Irish values, among them a strong commitment to justice and human rights. These values have been shaped by our own history and by basic religious beliefs which permeate our culture,” Mr Dorr said.