Sir, - Viewed in isolation, the implications of the Amsterdam Treaty may appear innocuous, to the extent that the electorate is encouraged to believe that to vote Yes can't do much harm.
This is only an illusion. The strategy being played out by the politicians is deliberately long. Every apparently innocuous change to the Constitution, delivered by successive EU treaties over a number of years, has by stealth, contributed to the creeping erosion of the Irish State, its institutions, its currency, its neutrality. This process will continue until Ireland has had its last EU referendum, and what took hundreds of years of struggle to establish, will be gone for good.
May I suggest that on May 22nd the electorate take a much broader view. Forget the convoluted nonsense of the Amsterdam Treaty and instead consider the following question as they stand in the ballot box: Article 5 of the Constitution enshrines Ireland as a sovereign, independent, democratic, nation. Do you agree that Article 5 should eventually be scrapped? Yes or No? - Yours, etc., David Woodcock
Drumlish, Co Longford.