TÁNAISTE BRIAN Cowen appealed to young people to vote “Yes” in the Lisbon Treaty referendum in June.
Speaking during the ongoing Dáil debate on the 29th Amendment to the Constitution Bill, which provides for the holding of the referendum, Mr Cowen said that the youngest voters in the referendum were born after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
“How meaningful do they find appeals to recall the European unification of Germany and of Europe? They have grown up in an affluent and confident Ireland. They do not remember how things were in the 1970s and 1980s, nor can they be expected to appreciate the scale of the change the European Union has helped bring to our country. How then do we convince them that they should follow their parents in appreciating the importance of the Union and voting to support this treaty?”
This generation of young Irish people “is by far the best travelled and outward-looking ever. They are idealistic and they are also conscious that the world is changing in ways which will pose great challenges to how they will live. The EU has a central role to play in responding to those challenges, and this treaty is important in helping equip it to do so.” He added that “while we can never take the electorate for granted, I believe that we will succeed on this occasion and that the people will vote to ratify the reform treaty”.
Earlier, Labour deputy leader Joan Burton said people were “highly sceptical about the Lisbon Treaty. In part this is because they have no sense that the Government is seriously engaged in explaining the treaty’s terms to them, with the possible exception of one or two Ministers.”
She believed there was an “enormous deficit in respect of the Government’s engagement in the argument. The point has been reached at which many of its supporters have asked why they should bother to vote if the Government does not care. Consequently the challenge for the Government is to put some effort and thought into explaining what is a complex treaty.”
Mr Cowen replied that Fianna Fáil had begun meetings on the referendum and 50 would be held. The deputy “can rest assured that Fianna Fáil intends to do all it can. We will commence an active campaign when we officially launch it in the coming weeks.”
The debate continues.
