Anti-treaty group unveils No campaign

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Anti-Lisbon Treaty group Libertas today formally unveiled its campaign for a No vote in the forthcoming referendum on the treaty.

It accused the Government and other supporters of a Yes vote of playing politics over the treaty.

Libertas - whose campaign slogan is 'Facts Not Politics' - pledged to send leaflets to businesses claiming that the treaty is bad for business and will launch a nationwide billboard campaign on March 24 th .

It also plans to send a leaflet outlining the arguments for and against the treaty to every home in the country. Libertas says the reason for doing this is that the since the passing of the Referendum Act 2001, the Referendum Commission no longer has a statutory function in relation to putting the arguments for and against referendum proposals.

The group is headed and funded by millionaire businessman Declan Ganley.

Libertas says that if the electorate were to read the treaty in full "most people would be against it".

Spokesman David Cochrane said that the treaty was made "intentionally difficult to read" and that it contained the same spelling mistakes that were contained in the original EU Constitution which was rejected by France and the Netherlands in 2005.

This afternoon, Fianna Fáil TD Barry Andrews said Libertas "has already exposed their anti-EU agenda by their claim that there is a sinister new provision in the treaty to give the Union 'absolute supremacy over Ireland'."

"The fact is that the provision they are attacking has actually been in our constitution for 36 years and is essential to membership of the union," said Mr Andrews.

The director of the Irish Alliance for Europe Brendan Kiely said the Libertas campaign was nothing more than an expensive, misleading PR exercise.

"During this campaign Libertas will endeavour to mislead the Irish electorate by saying that a Yes vote will be bad for Ireland's economic future. We believe the Irish people will not be fooled by such mistruths.

"The Lisbon Reform Treaty provides that sensitive areas such as taxation, social security, foreign policy and a common defence are still governed by the principle of unanimity which means that all member States must agree to any new proposals in these areas," said Mr Kiely.

Meanwhile Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern said a Yes vote would ensure continued economic success. "The Reform Treaty involves change and change can be intimidating, even to the point of stopping us from taking the necessary decisions that will enable us to thrive and prosper," he said, speaking at University College Cork. "Had we listened to the doubters in the mid 1980s, we could easily have missed out on much of the economic advancement we have experienced this past two decades."

The Government has yet to set a date for the treaty referendum, but it is expected that it will be held in mid-June.

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'No to Lisbon' Ganley is sharper than a Brian Cowen put-down

Declan Ganley strode into one of the small conference rooms in Dublin's Westin Hotel. Dressed in an immaculate pinstripe suit complete with stylish pocket square hanky, the founder of Libertas looked sharper than a Brian Cowen put-down.

Declan didn't look at all like one of the loolahs that Bertie has repeatedly warned us about -- that wild-eyed conglomeration of lefties and nay-sayers who are hell-bent on giving a collective nul points to his beloved Lisbon Treaty referendum this summer.

Far from it. The man spearheading one of the potpourri of No to Lisbon campaigns is a poster-boy for the Celtic Tiger. The 39-year-old native son of Galway has amassed a fortune through his own entrepreneurship, and now lives with his American wife and four children in a large mansion outside Tuam.

"Sorry I'm late," he apologised in an English accent which speaks of his early childhood growing up in London. But his tardiness in turning up to his own press conference to launch the organisation's campaign slogan, 'Facts, not Politics' was the only slip in a slick presentation straight out of the Gordon Gekko school of the hard sell.

Creature

Declan pressed all the hot buttons beloved by Eurosceptics and anyone who likes to rail against The Man.

He warned that if we vote Yes, "we are losing our voice at the table". It will open "an enormous back door to interference in our taxation policy". The Yes voters would unleash a dreadful creature -- the Treaty "creates a Frankenstein's monster from the successful body of European treaties that we already have -- it guts them and replaces them with other languages," he said graphically.

It seemed as if Declan Ganley had left the room, to be replaced by the 'X Files' chief paranoiac, Fox Mulder.

But he was vague when it came to talking about campaign finances. He has always exercised a similar discretion when it comes to talking about how he amassed his own fortune; although pride of place goes to his involvement in American technology company, Rivada Networks.

It developed technology for a portable communications network that subsequently won lucrative contracts from the US Department of Defense.

Declan was reluctant to discuss the minutiae of how the Libertas campaign is being funded. He himself has donated the legal maximum, €6,438 last year, and the same this year. But the rest is from donations.

"Some wonderful people are stepping forward and writing cheques," he said. But he wouldn't divulge any names, in case The Man was listening.

"No, I can't," he said with Mulder-like mystery.

Nor was he too happy discussing the remarks of Eurosceptic Danish MEP Jens-Peters Bonde who suggested that a Yes vote in Ireland might affect our constitutional stance on abortion -- a claim roundly rejected by the Yes lobby.

"It doesn't talk about abortion in the Treaty -- it does say that the laws of the Union shall have primacy over the laws of the State," he said.

Patriotic

The only time he paused was when he was asked what made him tick. What made this multi-millionaire take up the cause on behalf of the Irish people?

"I have been an enthusiastic European, I love Europe almost as much as I love Ireland," he explained, adding, "to say that you're patriotic you would be sblack personed at".

But no-one is sblack personing. Although we still await a date for the referendum, the war between Yes and No has begun. There'll be all kinds of claims made by both sides. But the Truth is Out There. It just seems damned difficult to find.