Sir, - It would be foolish of me to admit to preferring to read The Irish Times online, rather than on paper, as I might soon find myself being charged for the pleasure. However, one of the advantages of the online version is that I can start reading the text of the letters utterly unaware of their authors' identity, with no possibility of my eye sneaking a glance down to the name at the end.
As I began to read the letter of April 28th accusing those who claim the Nice Treaty is a threat to Irish democracy of scaremongering, I said to myself that it had to come from either a politician or one of the many paid-up "independent" academics and researchers whose employment in Irish institutions is funded by the EU. And, scrolling down through that letter, which gave not one positive reason for the Treaty, but merely condemnation for those who oppose Irish ratification, whose name did I find at the bottom but that of Niall Andrews, MEP?
The Amsterdam and Nice Treaties do not in themselves terminally damage our democracy. That damage was already being done, little by little, under the original Rome Treaty, and increased by the Single European Act. Irish legislation must be approved by the Oireachtas, elected by popular vote through a voting system mandated by our Constitution. Such legislation is also subject to our constitutional rights. EU legislation is subject to neither. It is devised by the unelected body of bureaucrats known as the European Commission. Then it is either approved solely by the Council of Ministers, consisting of the representatives of the Governments of each Member State, or jointly by the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament which in practice having something more in the nature of a veto, than a genuine ability to shape legislation). The Irish Government is thus able to sign up to legislation at the Council of Ministers which would not get through the Oireachtas and would be found contrary to constitutional rights it did. - Yours, etc.,
Rob Cannon, Herbert Road, Dublin 4.