Campaigners against the Nice Treaty must show how a No vote will advance Irish interests, the Progressive Democrat Minister of State, Mr Tom Parlon, has declared.
People who are "confident in Ireland and optimistic for the future" should vote Yes in the upcoming referendum, he told the Patrick MacGill Summer School in Glenties, Co Donegal. So far, he said, he had seen no optimism about Ireland's future from No campaigners, nor had they displayed any willingness to work with fellow EU members.
"Instead, I hear a rehash of arguments that were made 30 years ago by Dr Anthony Coughlan (of the National Platform) and others at the time we joined the Common Market.
"They were anti-EEC then, and they still sound the same to me. Dr Coughlan warned of "grave consequences" of Ireland joining the Common Market back then. He called it a rich man's club for big business, not in tune with Ireland's "progressive political traditions" and Irish people's "higher moral values".
"He said European regional policy was a myth, social policy was another myth and agricultural policy was a gamble.
"Well, the wolf has always been at the door for Anthony," said Mr Parlon.
The Minister of State for the Office of Public Works said Sinn Féin president, Mr Gerry Adams, had warned in 1987 that the Single European Act would wipe out Ireland's economic sovereignty. "If our economic sovereignty was wiped out 15 years ago, it can't be wiped out again.
"Time has made that claim, and so many others, look ridiculous," declared Mr Parlon.
Dealing with Ireland's future economic prospects, he said they depended on Ireland's own actions, he said
"It depends on what we want to happen. It depends on what we work to make happen. There is no inevitability. There are no guarantees. There is no divine right to continuing prosperity. No other country has a duty to provide it to us. We must make it happen for Ireland. And I am completely convinced that we can only make it happen for Ireland fully within Europe," he told the MacGill summer school.
Speaking on the same platform, Dr Coughlan, the secretary of The National Platform, claimed Ireland would come under pressure to raise corporation taxes if Nice is ratified.
Under the treaty, eight countries will be able to develop policies on their own, as long as it does not discriminate against other member states and they get the majority agreement of the rest. This, said Dr Coughlan, would allow a minority to agree common taxes.
"Ireland could still refuse to go along, but the pressures on us would undoubtedly hugely increase.
"This illustrates why it is essential to Ireland's economic interests that the EU remains a partnership of legal equals, not a two-class two-tier Europe effectively dominated by the big states," he said.
"It is against our economic as well as political interests to have an EU in which Ireland will be deprived, possibly for long periods, of a representative on the Commission, the body that proposes all EU laws," said Dr Coughlan. Last night, the Department of Foreign Affairs rejected Mr Coughlan's corporation tax fears.
"The only way that it could affect us is if a minority agreed to cut taxes, not set common higher ones," said a spokesman.
