LABOUR WOMEN:A SPECIAL appeal to women to support the treaty was made by Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton when she addressed a Labour Women event in Dublin yesterday.
The party’s director of elections for the referendum said “voting Yes to the treaty will give us access to the new bailout fund, the ESM”.
“We hope and intended to say goodbye to the troika on time next year and raise money in a normal way, but what if circumstances mean that we can’t? I cannot understand why anyone would choose to walk a tightrope without a safety net.”
Ms Burton said membership of the EU had entitled Irish women to “all the freedoms” that other European women enjoyed. “The right to work after women got married; the right to equal pay; the right to control our own fertility.”
Ms Burton was joined by Labour MEPs Nessa Childers, Emer Costello and Phil Prendergast.
Ms Childers claimed women in Greece were not receiving treatment for breast cancer in sufficient time because their health services had been so badly damaged.
Ms Costello said the euro currency had allowed Ireland to break free from financial instability, such as experienced during the 1992 crisis. Ms Prendergast said research had shown that if women did not understand what they were voting for, they were more likely to vote No.
