INFORMATION CAMPAIGN:SINN FÉIN is still considering an injunction against the Government's €2 million information campaign on the treaty, which is in addition to the independent Referendum Commission's work.
The party is in correspondence with the Government seeking information to determine if the McKenna judgment on impartiality has been breached.
Party vice-president Mary Lou McDonald TD said Sinn Féin was "very unhappy" with the official stabilitytreaty.iewebsite.
“They initially had political speeches on it – they have taken those down – but the information on it is incomplete and certainly ‘leading’ and directs people in a particular way. The McKenna judgment is very clear: the State and the government have no right to spend money in a preferential way to promote either one side or the other.
“We’re in correspondence with the Government because we want to have sight of the text of a second leaflet that they propose to distribute. I understand that the Attorney General is to write back to us: I haven’t received that correspondence yet.”
Ms McDonald told a press conference in Dublin yesterday that the party was also “analysing and going through” the booklet already being distributed by the Government. When they had seen the two publications and received legal advice the party would decide on whether to seek an injunction.
Finance spokesman Pearse Doherty said there had been “a lot of scaremongering coming from senior Government Ministers” over the consequences of a No vote. They were trying “to scare the Irish people” into voting for a treaty that was bad for them and for Europe as a whole”.
There was an onus on the Yes side to spell out where they would get the extra €6 billion to comply with article 3 of the treaty, restricting the structural deficit to 0.5 per cent.
The Government needed to make clear “where they intend to impose the cuts, which taxes they propose to increase to bridge that gap”.
Dismissing claims that Ireland would be debarred from a second bailout if the treaty were defeated, he said: “Emergency funding, if required, would be available from European sources.”
