'Act of lunacy and insanity' to reject Lisbon Treaty
Apparently the Irish Prime Minister thinks only the certifiably insane would reject the Lisbon treaty:
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**** Taoiseach warns of 'greatest act of lunacy' if treaty rejected ****
[Picture: Bertie Ahern poses under a portrait of John F Kennedy with former US Ambassador to Ireland Jean Kennedy Smith (left), Caroline Kennedy and US Senator Edward Kennedy at the JFK Library in Boston yesterday]
By Senan Molony in Boston
Saturday May 03 2008
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FOR voters to reject the Lisbon treaty would be "the greatest act of lunacy and insanity", Taoiseach Bertie Ahern warned yesterday.
But at the same time Mr Ahern told an audience at Harvard university that there was little difference between next month's referendum proposal here and a constitutional treaty already rejected by big majorities in France and Holland.
**** Departing from his script, Mr Ahern suggested the treaty differences were largely cosmetic **** - comments that could aid anti-Lisbon campaigners.
At the John F Kennedy Junior forum in Harvard, Mr Ahern answered one student's question by saying: "After the votes in the Netherlands and France we had to go into a period of reflection.
[Laughed]
**** "We changed the name, and as with all great agreements, took a few sections out of it, turned it around a bit, and called it the reform treaty," at which point his audience laughed. ****
Returning to the subject at a later question from the floor, Mr Ahern repeated that the Lisbon treaty was largely based on the constitutional treaty, but said drafters had taken "some of the trappings out of it, and some of the substance out of it".
"It hasn't changed much from the agreement that I concluded back in 2004, so obviously I'm in favour of it," he said. Voters had to decide "whether to be whistling out in the dark, or at the centre of things".
Such binding deals meant nations pooled their sovereignty, but didn't lose their sovereignty [a bit like the old Soviet Union, then - T.B.], he said. He said the No side had been saying since 1973, when there was 23pc unemployment, that Ireland would go backwards in Europe, but instead the economy was a success story that exported 90pc of what we produce.
"When I go to the table I can get around with the German chancellor and the French president" each representing one country, Mr Ahern noted. "To pull yourself out of that would be the greatest act of lunacy and insanity."
The Taoiseach also commented on a range of other questions, from students including the role of peacekeeping troops in Chad. He said Irish troops will be in the African country "for the long haul".
He went to warn that the war on terror would continue as people who were ideologically driven could not be beaten by conventional military means. Militants making trouble in the world to cloak their criminality could be taken on and "you have to defeat them". But the situation was different for terrorism driven by ideas.
"You are not going to beat them," he said. "They could be subdued in the short term, but would always come back.
"We have experience of that in Ireland. Someone tried to beat us for 800 years."
He added: "In any conflict, other than maybe an offbeat regime, I would prefer dialogue." However he pointed to a special section set up in the Department of Foreign Affairs to export Irish expertise in solving age-old quarrels to other trouble spots.
However he said that one area of conflict that he doesn't want to comment on is the race for the White House.
"I'm totally apolitical about your election," he said. "Hillary is a big friend of Ireland. Barack Obama is from Offaly. And John McCain is Ulster-Scots, so we can't go wrong."
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