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Kathy Sinnott speech
at 10:05 Tuesday, 24th June 2008
Slovenia has proudly and diligently carried the Presidency. In your summit, you decided to study why the Irish voted NO, so in response, I will repeat what I said last week, that Ireland was uneasy at finding its democracy eroding and its values changed.
Ireland has a history that makes it especially value democracy. However, increasingly we find that our decision making power seems to be migrating to the Commission. However when questioned about particular decisions, the Commission defers to the National Authorities. Nobody seems to be responsible. An agreeable situation for nearly everyone except the citizen, the nation gets the regulation it wants as well as the revenue but ducks the responsibility. This is felt in day to day items such as the Water Framework Directive with its water charges. It was also felt in the run up to the referendum where some voices from Europe told us that the outcome of our vote didn’t matter, other voices threatened us with retribution and even expulsion from the EU if we did not get it right. Despite these threats or possibly because of them, a large number of Irish people voted against this Treaty.
Concerning values. Many still considers Ireland a Christian nation, despite the recent decades of secularisation. We are uneasy at European voices calling for either a right to abortion or a right to euthanasia. It is only a year since this Parliament, the Council and the Commission in the Advanced Therapies Directive chose not to ban embryo destructive cloning, commercialisation of the human body and animal human hybrids. Shortly before that the 7th Framework Directive allowed EU funding for embryo destructive research. Only a year ago on 5th July 2007 here in the Parliament, a conference was held to promote Medically assisted dying and Euthanasia in Europe, it was well attended by MEPs and a large number of interested groups. As the conference progressed it was clear that they eagerly anticipated the coming into force of the Charter of Fundamental Rights which they felt with the right court cases would open the door to euthanasia Europe wide. None of this has gone unnoticed in Ireland. ?
Further although those who wanted a yes vote constantly reminded the Irish of how well they have done out of Europe, for the fishing industry which struggles to survive, the profitable sugar industry which disappeared with the stroke of a Brussels pen, the building workers who are trying to live from job to job it just doesn't ring true.
It is now clear that the large countries intend to force us to revote until we give a Yes to Lisbon. They have enlisted their willing allies from the political classes in Ireland, they who were so out of touch with the people that they were in shock at the outcome and angry at the voters.
If you want the people of Ireland or anywhere else for that matter to embrace Europe you will have to listen to them telling you of the Europe they want and act on their concerns, otherwise they will vote no again.
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Originally Posted by eurosceptic
Yes, lets just ignore that the polls showd those two were not concerns....
