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LEAFLET:THE EUROPEAN Commission has been accused of wasting taxpayers’ money by circulating a pro-Lisbon Treaty supplement with Sunday newspapers.

Former MEP and chairwoman of the People’s Movement Patricia McKenna said the commission had placed “a 16-page propaganda supplement” in all Irish newspapers as a paid insert. “This is an unlawful use of European taxpayers’ money, since the European Commission has no competence whatever in the ratification of treaties. It is also in breach of Irish law and the principles of the McKenna judgment as established by the Supreme Court in 1995 whereby taxpayers’ money cannot be used to promote one side in a referendum campaign.”