FF LAUNCH AFTERMATH:TAOISEACH BRIAN Cowen has been criticised after acknowledging he has not read the Lisbon Treaty "from cover to cover".
Declan Ganley, founder of the anti-Lisbon Treaty group Libertas, said it was “galling to hear Brian Cowen call for a treaty he hasn’t read himself”.
The Tuam-based businessman, speaking at a National Forum on Europe debate in Galway on Monday night, said Mr Cowen should “go back to Brussels and get a better deal”.
In an RTÉ radio interview earlier that day, Mr Cowen was asked if he had had time to read the treaty from cover to cover.
“I haven’t read it from cover to cover,” he said, adding that as minister for foreign affairs in 2004 he had negotiated 95 per cent of the treaty. “I know exactly what’s in it.”
Mr Ganley said the treaty referendum was one of the most important choices the people had ever faced. “I have four young kids and I have read the treaty in full. Brian Cowen has not even read the entire treaty. You wouldn’t sign a contract on a house unless you had read it in full.”
He told the large attendance at the forum meeting that Ireland’s voting weight at the European Council would be diminished and a Yes vote would lead to a “dysfunctional and anti-democratic” EU.
He also claimed that Ireland’s veto on tax matters would be as “useful as a chocolate teapot”. The treaty would allow Ireland’s corporate tax rates to be challenged by the European Council of Justice under competition law.
Galway Fianna Fáil MEP Seán Ó Neachtain rejected Mr Ganley’s arguments. He said taxation would remain under the remit of the individual member state, and the treaty was a “good deal for Ireland and a good deal for Europe”.
Mr Ó Neachtain warned that Ireland would “lose influence and power” if the Lisbon Treaty was not passed, and said it was “the only treaty we can get”.
He accused Mr Ganley of being hypocritical, and said it was “a bit rich of him to show his support for farmers when he once called the Common Agricultural Policy a ‘weapon of mass destruction’.”