The Government ignored the Opposition before the first Lisbon referendum. And it is in danger of doing so again, Labour leader Eamon Gilmore says
IN LATE November Eamon Gilmore travelled to meet fellow socialist party leaders from throughout the European Union in Madrid.
Once there, Gilmore rapidly began to become concerned that his colleagues - some of whom are in government - were far better informed about the Government's plans to cope with the referendum than he was.
"We were picking up things that were being said on a government-to-government basis that we didn't know about.
"It is hard to put my finger on it. But you know when you are discussing with a colleague who knows more about the Irish position . That is not smart," he told The Irish Times.
Immediately after the referendum, the Government, bruised by the outcome, made a great play for a period of consulting both Fine Gael and Labour. Then the Oireachtas all-party committee was set up: "They seem to have taken the view that that is where the discussions with the Opposition parties take place," said Gilmore, sitting in his Leinster House office. " discussions between the Government and the Opposition parties went off the boil and to the back-burner and stayed there until the eve of the summit," he said.
In the days prior to the December summit, both he and Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny complained about being left in the dark before they were given a briefing by Taoiseach Brian Cowen and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Micheál Martin.
Gilmore is on first-name terms with fellow socialist leaders in the Party of European Socialists, while Kenny enjoys similar access in Europe's centre-right grouping, the European People's Party.
"If there is a national agenda to be pursued I have an entrée to leaders of government in other states and Enda Kenny has an entrée with others elsewhere.
"I would have thought that that would be of assistance to the national effort. But we were not put in the loop until the very end, and then we were given the generality of what was being sought," he said.
The majority of the guarantees - dealing with neutrality, taxation, abortion - sought by the Government are of little moment to Gilmore, since they cover areas that the Lisbon Treaty would never have affected anyway.
However, they will reassure, he hoped, some No voters: "Abortion was a significant issue, surprisingly so because there was nothing in Lisbon about it. The fear that was being communicated was that abortion would be brought in the back door by Lisbon. There was nothing in Lisbon that should have given rise to that fear and therefore putting in a legal guarantee something similar to what was done for the Maastricht Treaty would address that."
A declaration that Ireland's corporation tax rate would not be threatened would be of help, if only to ensure that the desire of people such as the French finance minister, Christine Lagarde, for common EU business tax rules - if not rates - could not be seen as a threat to longstanding Irish policy.
Worryingly, however, Gilmore suspects, or fears, that the Government intends to go much further in its efforts to bring No voters behind it.
"What surprised me was that they have included in the summit conclusions references to legally binding issues on education and the family.
"Education and the family did not surface as issues during the referendum. I have gone back over the Millward Brown research that was done.
"I can find no evidence at all in that to education and family emerging as issues. Therefore, I am curious as to what is the nature of the legal guarantees that are to be sought.
"We put a very strong emphasis on the Charter on Fundamental Rights.
"We saw the adoption of the charter as something that was going to extend rights of the individual citizen in the EU, and give individual citizens access to the European Court of Judgment and underpin a whole range of rights. We have not seen any text yet for what the Government is either looking for, or is going to get, in terms of these legal guarantees. Until we do see that I don't think we can form a judgment.
"But what I do want to say is that if the Government is pursuing an agenda which is being driven by social conservatives on these issues there is going to be a problem with the Labour Party on these questions and I believe that there will be a problem with a lot of people in this country who would be of a liberal outlook and who would be concerned that Irish citizens would not have the same access, or might not have the same access to the European Court of Justice on these issues as other EU citizens," he said.
He brought up his fears during a meeting with both Mr Cowen and Mr Martin, but neither was able to make it clear what the education and family phrase meant.
The Department of Foreign Affairs, when questioned by The Irish Times, was equally reluctant to specify the particular issues that could be affected.
In its report, the Oireachtas subcommittee on Europe acknowledged that some of the witnesses before it had expressed concerns "about the potential impact of EU law on Ireland's position on sensitive socio-ethical issues such as abortion and the place of the family in society.
"Some have argued that this signifies a 'creeping' by the EU into areas where it has no competence under the treaties. A concern was also expressed that the union does not fully take into account Europe's Christian heritage when developing legislation and policies.
"It should be borne in mind that the EU has no formal competences in relation to sensitive moral and ethical issues or family law," the majority report from the subcommittee found.
Making it clear that he will seek definitive answers in the new year, Gilmore said: "We have a Bill at the moment for legal rights for same-sex unions. It is the equivalent of same-sex marriage. Are they seeking some kind of arrangements that would restrict ? I don't know. I am speculating because they haven't told us what the education and family matters on which they are seeking guarantees amount to.
"Until we know what that is - we have asked, yes, and we have got no text. We have got evasion, yes. My concern is that what is being pursued here is a socially conservative agenda which goes way beyond the concerns that were expressed at the time of the referendum."
And answers from the Government will not be enough, if Labour is to be kept onside for Lisbon II. Gilmore wants to be involved.
The Labour Party, he insisted, will not accept diktats: "I have said to them that we want to be involved in the evolution of those texts.
"I don't want them to come back and present us with a fait accompli which could pose, depending on what is in them, difficulties for us as a party and which could pose difficulties for voters who value these things."
