Using the Nice Treaty to make a protest about domestic issues could lead to a "winded government and a wounded Ireland", the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, has warned.
At a press conference held by the Progressive Democrats to launch its Nice campaign, Mr McDowell said: "We got rid of the Iron Curtain, are we going to replace it with a Valley of the Squinting Windows Irish Lace Curtain across Europe, where due to narrow, introverted domestic concerns we turn our back on what is the destiny of all these countries?"
It would be totally wrong to give into a "fairly irresponsible" No campaign, whose adherents were "throwing up any old thought that occurs to them, that may or may not get a bit of attention or a headline".
Indicating a child in the room who is featured in PD referendum posters, he continued in emotional tones: "None of the No campaigners, taken together or separately, have a vision of Europe that is anyway coherent or anyway likely to deliver to that little girl that's over there the kind of future she deserves."
Commenting on suggestions that people should vote No to "punish" the Government, he said: "We could end up with a winded government, but we will certainly end up with a wounded Ireland."
It was a "lie" to say that the 10 accession states could come into the European Union without "the passage of a treaty such as the Nice Treaty".
It was "deceiving the public" to say that enlargement could go ahead in such circumstances, Mr McDowell said.
The Tánaiste and PD leader, Ms Harney, was asked if her well-known remark about Ireland being "spiritually closer to Boston than Berlin" had harmed the Yes campaign in the previous referendum.
She replied that, "Ireland hasn't embraced either the capitalistic model of the United States or the socialist model that is prevalent in many European countries. We have evolved a very unique model here. The social partnership model that was put in place in this country over many years has delivered much of the economic success."
Ms Harney believed that in the last referendum campaign the voters were taken for granted.