GALWAY:FIVE GALWAY city and county councillors have issued a joint call for a No vote in the Lisbon Treaty referendum.
City councillors Colette Connolly (Lab), Catherine Connolly (Ind) and Daniel Callanan (Ind) have issued the appeal, along with county councillors Seosamh Ó Cuaig (Ind) and Dermot Connolly (Sinn Féin), who represent Connemara and Ballinasloe, Co Galway, respectively.
Mr Callanan was formerly with Sinn Féin, while Catherine Connolly is a former Labour Party representative who ran as an Independent candidate in the city in the last general election.
Her sister and Labour Party councillor Colette Connolly has decided to challenge her own party's policy on Lisbon.
The five said that although they "may not always see eye-to-eye at council level", they believed that the "further transfer of power to Brussels" proposed in the Lisbon Treaty was a "step too far".
Mr Ó Cuaig said power was "the crux" of the issue.
"Just look at the state of our fishing industry - that is all thanks to Brussels," he said at the weekend. "And now they dictate what we do with our sheep or whether we can cut our turf. It has gone too far. It is time to call a halt."
Mr Callanan said he believed the treaty was "another step on the road to a United States of Europe", and to a situation where "the big states will totally dictate policy and we on the periphery of Europe can wave goodbye to our 12.5 per cent corporation tax".
Catherine Connolly said "this treaty has little to do with the further promotion of equality and democracy and much more to do with the development of a militarised EU".