Address legitimate Lisbon concerns, committee told

IT WOULD be a serious error to bring the Lisbon Treaty to the people for a second time without addressing legitimate Irish concerns, a Dáil committee on Europe was told yesterday.

Gerard Colleran, editor of the Irish Daily Star, said the Government needed to stop treating the people of Ireland as fools and must not try to pull the wool over their eyes again. Speaking to the Sub-Committee on Ireland's Future in the European Union, Mr Colleran said the people of Ireland had made the right decision, because they don't make a wrong decision.

"People better get their heads around that," he said.

He argued that a long-term plan was needed to inform people about the positives of the European project, which included peace since 1945. He said his paper's readers had been largely ignored in the campaign, though it supported the treaty.

He told committee members that people in the "comfortable parliamentary bubble" of the Dáil needed to realise there was almost a complete breakdown in trust between people on the street and politicians.

John Kearns, editor of the Daily Mirror, said the EU was not communicating with "the people who eat their dinner in the middle of the day". He said his paper had supported the treaty, but the EU office in Dublin was only interested in talking to The Irish Times.

He said the literature circulated to every home in advance of the referendum by the Referendum Commission was "gobbledegook" and "the greatest load of crap". "If people couldn't understand it, why would they vote for it?" he asked.

Deputy Billy Timmins (FG) referred to a column by Sarah Carey published yesterday in The Irish Times, in which she wrote that while working for the Sunday Timesshe was told she could not write an article in support of the Lisbon Treaty. He asked whether the two editors came under similar pressure.

Mr Kearns said he was part of the Trinity Mirror group and had not come under any pressure. Mr Colleran said the benefit of an Irish-owned newspaper was that it did not receive phone calls from headquarters with helpful suggestions.

Frank Cullen, co-ordinating director of National Newspapers of Ireland, said the Yes campaign should have placed adverts in newspapers, just as the No campaign had. He said the Government and the EU needed to invest a great deal more resources in engaging the Irish people.