The Government is intent on using the title "EU Reform Treaty" rather than the increasingly prevalent "Lisbon Treaty" for the document that will go before the people in this year's referendum on the future of Europe.
"The Government believes the name reform treaty has a certain value in indicating the purpose and value of the treaty," Government sources told The Irish Times. "We are attached to that name because it conveys the sense of what it [ the treaty] is all about."
In his new year message on the referendum, Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern consistently uses the terms "EU Reform Treaty" or "reform treaty", although he does acknowledge that the document was "signed in Lisbon".
"Treaties have tended to be called by the name of the place they were signed in but there is no reason why that has to be the case," the sources said.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern used the term "reform treaty" throughout the text of an opinion piece in The Irish Times of December 14th last.
The Government is hoping to drive the point home in the referendum campaign that, despite the title of its ill-fated predecessor, this document is not intended to be a new constitution for the EU. "The name constitution caused confusion," an insider said.
President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso uses the term, "Treaty of Lisbon" in his December 18th statement congratulating Hungary on becoming the first member state to ratify it. But Mr Barroso is, of course, a former prime minister of Portugal.
The Government website on the document, www.reformtreaty.ie, can also be accessed at www.lisbontreaty.ie and even www.lisbonreformtreaty.ie. The website has come under fire for alleged political bias from Sinn Féin and the anti-treaty think tank Libertas.
Sinn Féin MEP for Dublin Mary Lou McDonald described the website as "a slap in the face for democracy". She had previously demanded "that the Government's public information campaign be informed and balanced", but said this had been ignored in favour of "an alarmist and scaremongering campaign".
President of Libertas Declan Ganley said the presence of "blatantly political messaging" on the website was a total abuse of State resources.
"The fact that a website which is funded by the taxpayer and carries the seal of the Irish State has on its front page a press release attacking opponents of the treaty is absolutely disgraceful," he said.
