Madam, - I read the "World View" article of Paul Gillespie entitled "Vigorous Campaign Needed to Highlight Reform Treaty Issues" (Nov 24th) with some interest.
He urges us to engage in a broad political debate on the Reform Treaty that has "mostly to do with making the EU more effective in a more interdependent world and how Ireland best contributes to and gains from that. . . rather than argue its merits in boring detail."
Capital advice indeed! But then, when a good debate does take place along those lines, The Irish Timesfails to give it any coverage.
On the weekend of November 16th-18th the Labour Party, at its National Conference in Wexford, had a lively and spirited debate on the Reform Treaty.
Contributors to the debate included Michael D Higgins, Proinsias de Rossa, Roger Cole (Pana) and Labour Youth.
The debate on the Reform Treaty was probably the most important debate of the entire conference. Yet your newspaper couldn't manage to give it a line of coverage before, during or after the conference.
You left your readers in the dark as to the outcome of that debate and whether or not the 1,l00 Labour Party delegates present committed the party to support ratification of the treaty in the forthcoming referendum.
I can tell you now that the delegates voted resoundingly to support and campaign for a Yes vote. That campaign is now being put in place.
My point is this - a good debate deserves the oxygen of publicity and a political party should be entitled to expect that the newspaper of record will record the important positions it adopts on key national issues and its reasons for doing so, and communicate them to its readers.
Otherwise the 62 per cent "don't knows" in last month's Irish Times TNS/mrbi poll on attitudes to the Reform Treaty will remain little changed when the referendum takes place in 2008. - Yours, etc,
JOE COSTELLO TD,
Labour Party Spokesperson on European Affairs and Human Rights,
Dáil Éireann,
Dublin 2.