Yes and no campaigners in the Amsterdam Treaty referendum made their final appeals to voters yesterday, with both maintaining totally irreconcilable positions on what the document amounted to.
In its final appeal, Fianna Fail characterised the No campaigners as "living in cloud-cuckoo land" if they believed Ireland could renegotiate the treaty. "The only thing we can do is renegotiate downwards our own level of participation in the European Union, and that is not in our interests", said the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern.
He also said that if Ireland did not want Europe to become a federal state or a military superpower "we should stay inside and use our influence to prevent it happening, instead of adopting the essentially defeatist and isolationist approach of the Greens and the National Platform".
Fianna Fail was just as committed to national sovereignty and neutrality as these parties. "But we have a better way of going about it, that does not damage our other vital interests", Mr Ahern said.
However, the Green Party and other No campaigners insisted that the treaty eroded neutrality.
Ms Patricia McKenna MEP predicted a strong No vote, saying: "The Irish people do not accept the militarising of Europe, they do not accept human rights provisions that have been criticised by Amnesty International, and they do not accept the weak employment and social provisions in the treaty."
The chairman of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA), Mr Roger Cole, warned that the treaty was "a step in the process of transformation of the European Union into a nuclear armed federal super-state". The Yes campaign was an "attempt to restore the Redmondite tradition of Home Rule within the Empire".
He claimed that some "Euro fanatics" believed "the only good European is a dead Irishman". His organisation would not go away, but would "continue to build up the organisation and oppose the revival of Redmondism".
Mr Cole complimented The Irish Times on its "excellent, fair and balanced coverage given to both sides in the referendum debate". Senator Brendan Ryan and Senator David Norris said that they concurred with Mr Cole's remarks. Mr Cole said he would like to see an editorial in this newspaper calling for a No vote.
The president of PANA, the Rev Terence McCaughey, said he did not believe Irish neutrality was being given away entirely in the treaty. "But the terms of the treaty involve us so much in security structures that in the future we will be told that we showed a willingness to merge our foreign and defence policies with the WEU and NATO."
The Minister of State, Mr Willie O'Dea, criticised the former High Court judge, Mr Justice Rory O'Hanlon, for his comments on the treaty in an article in yesterday's Irish Times. Mr Justice O'Hanlon's arguments against the treaty were "typical of the misleading, banal scare-mongering to which we have been subjected for too long", Mr O'Dea said in a statement.
"I challenge the ex-judge to state precisely what changes in Irish law and practice will occur in those areas of concern to him as a result of the Amsterdam Treaty. The answer, of course, is precisely none."