I have had pretty much a lifelong respect for two politicians who came to prominence in the Dail when I started writing a political column for the Irish Independent in 1973.

They are John Bruton, who was first elected to the Dail in that year and became a junior minister under Liam Cosgrave, and Garret FitzGerald, who was an outstanding Minister for Foreign Affairs in the same administration. They both subsequently served as Taoiseach. Read More...

The Lisbon Treaty is a constitutional document. It establishes a new federal state of Europe. It makes us citizens of that state with dual loyalties. There are variations in the degree to which we accept and implement some of those loyalties, but in effect we are drawn into a new citizenship status that undoubtedly compromises and changes our present citizenship of Ireland.
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Dick Roche, the Minister for European Affairs, is wrong on both of the counts on which he faults me, in an article in yesterday’s paper. He suggests that I am in error about a key phrase in the Lisbon Treaty, the Amendment to Article 93 which adds to the treaty the injunction ‘to avoid distortion of competition’. He makes the point – which is a common procedure in those arguing for a Yes vote – that this phrase might be used to outlaw our current corporation tax rate, and goes on to say there is a distinction between indirect and direct taxes.
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The central issue on which the country will vote in the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is constitutional. All other matters, on which we are being peppered with assurances, exaggerations, threats, cajolement and the absurdities that are promised in what will become a tidal wave of posters, are peripheral. Read More...

Last week's introductory article about the Lisbon Treaty has left many issues still open for present and future debate. The most important of all of them derives from the actual text of the amendment we are being asked to approve.

These are the first two sentences of the text: Read More...