FORMER FINE Gael leader Alan Dukes has expressed concern about the level of influence exercised by Germany and France in the euro-zone crisis.
Mr Dukes, who is now chairman of the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, said he was very much afraid because of the vacuum that 15 heads of state and government had allowed to emerge.
“We are being led by the nose by two of them, one of whom is a very substantial lady who knows what she is doing . . . the other a butterfly who hasn’t a bull’s notion where he is going . . . into an absolute dead end of utter fixation on fiscal policy and a complete denial of what we need to do to deal with the monetary problem that we have,” he added.
Minister of State for European Affairs, Lucinda Creighton, said there would be no EU but for France and Germany. “We need the big member states to show leadership,” she added.
Mr Dukes and Ms Creighton were speaking at a gathering of former Oireachtas members in the Dáil chamber yesterday. A seminar, on the theme of Ireland and Europe – 50 Years-a-Growing, was organised by the Irish Parliamentary (Former Members) Society.
Former editor of The Irish Times Geraldine Kennedy, who was a Progressive Democrats TD from 1987 to 1989, said she was concerned about the noises coming from the Government on whether there should or should not be a referendum to approve a new EU treaty.
There might be a legal case for approving a new international treaty, but there was a political and moral imperative, in current circumstances, to put it before the people. “The Government might do well not to make the mistakes of their predecessor and have faith in the good sense of the electorate to recognise our long-term economic interest with Europe and with the euro,” she added.
Ms Kennedy said she could not overestimate the political effects on the Irish psyche of the loss of financial sovereignty.
Former Fianna Fáil minister for economic planning Dr Martin O’Donoghue said the Government should try to avoid a referendum.
“I was appalled during the Nice and other campaigns when the powerful slogan was ‘if you don’t know, vote no’,” he added.
President of the Irish Human Rights Commission and former TD and senator Dr Maurice Manning said the performance of the Oireachtas over the decades had probably been the biggest failure and disappointment of Ireland’s EU membership.
“The Oireachtas has rarely, if ever, shaped events, and all too often was bypassed, sometimes without even knowing it,” he said.
A number of speakers paid tribute to the role played by Seán Lemass in preparing the way for Ireland’s membership of the EEC in 1973. Press Ombudsman Prof John Horgan, author of Seán Lemass: The Enigmatic Patriot, said Lemass’s view on international organisations was demonstrably different to that held by Éamon de Valera. “As early as 1944, with war still on, Lemass was telling a Dublin audience that a determination to defend independence was not to be confused with a policy of isolationism.”