Sir, - Dr Garret FitzGerald, Ireland's chief ideologist of Eurounionism, attempts to establish (May 30th) that the near two-fifths No vote on May 22nd against ratifying the Amsterdam Treaty masks a true level of support for the Treaty which, he suggests, was in fact greater than that for the Single European Act and Maastricht treaties! He achieves this feat of statistical legerdemain mainly by assuming that if those who said they voted No because they were inadequately informed, had in fact been adequately informed and had then voted for the Treaty in the same ratio as the rest of the population, the Yes vote would have been much higher than it was.
Yet, in doing this, he ignores the evidence that there were significant numbers who voted Yes to Amsterdam, even though they too felt that they were inadequately informed, and that if they had been better informed some of them would have voted No. The Irish Independent opinion poll taken a few days before the referendum, showed that of 43 per cent of respondents who said they intended to vote Yes, 30 per cent said they understood the issues, and 13 per cent said they did not, even though the latter still intended to vote Yes. So speculation about the possible effects of ignorance of the issues can work both ways, not just one way, as Dr FitzGerald invalidly assumes.
The truth is that no one can say with certainty why nearly two-fifths of voters voted No to Amsterdam. I believe myself that some of the increase in the No vote was due to growing disillusionment with the European integration project and increasing apprehension about the likely impact of the single euro-currency, even though that as such had nothing to do with the Amsterdam Treaty. The principal EU developments over the coming years, ranging from the abolition of duty-free shopping to the abolition of the national currency, as well as EU enlargement and the reduction of Ireland's share of EU Structural Funds, should increase such voter disillusion and apprehension.
I believe, too, that many people voted No through indignation at the political cynicism they perceived in the Government's attempt to carry the Amsterdam vote on the back of the Northern Ireland Agreement referendum. As regards ignorance of the Treaty and its likely consequences, my impression is that on this occasion there was more information, and information of better quality, especially as regards the arguments for and against the Treaty, than in any previous European referendum, mainly because of the work of the Referendum Commission. If some voters felt ill-informed, that was mainly because of the lack of time and ability to concentrate on the Amsterdam issue, which in turn arose solely from the decision of the Government, supported by the main opposition parties, to hold referendums on two such different yet complex matters on the same day.
I suggest that Dr FitzGerald's attempt in the same article to cast retrospective doubt on the Supreme Court's judgment in the Crotty case should be disregarded. I remember well attending the High Court injunction hearing on the Single European Act, coming up to Christmas Eve 1986, when counsel for the State told the Court that the President, acting on the advice of the Government in which Dr FitzGerald was then Taoiseach, had signed the Dail motion bringing Title 3 of the SEA into law - which was a blatant and quite shameful attempt to put pressure on the Court, and could not be justified by reference to any other reason.
It is remarkable that since 1995, when the Supreme Court handed down its judgment in the McKenna case, neither Dr FitzGerald nor any other senior Irish politician involved has uttered a word of regret or apology to the people for the violation of standard democratic norms, not to mind of constitutionality, entailed in successive Governments spending taxpayers' money, in principle without limit, attempting to induce the people to vote the way the Government wanted them to in the referendums conducted between 1987 and 1995.
Dr FitzGerald's Euro-unionist credentials are impeccable; but I suggest that the record, and the general thrust of his article on the Amsterdam Treaty vote referred to, shows that his democratic ones are significantly less so. - Yours, etc., Anthony Coughlan,
Secretary, The National Platform, Crawford Avenue, Dublin 9.
