People should distinguish between their civic responsibilities and opposition to the Government, the Fine Gael leader, Mr Enda Kenny, said yesterday as he called for support for the Nice Treaty. "It is a Yes for Ireland, not a Yes for the Government," he said.
At the official opening of the Fine Gael referendum campaign in Dublin, Mr Kenny said: "There will be another day." Voters should not take a shortsighted political view when the future of the country was at stake.
"It is clear that there is a deep sense of public outrage at the way the electorate have been taken for fools, and that is putting the Nice Treaty at risk," he said.
He doubted that many Fianna Fáil public representatives would go on a "door-knocking process". Fianna Fáil had still not published its list of public meetings on Nice.
Fine Gael had already held a series of public meetings where people had raised concerns about valid issues. They could not be described, in the Taoiseach's words, as "dingbats or whingers".
The Yes campaign was going to need "a big lift-off" from the Government. "They need to get out there and get out there quickly," Mr Kenny said.
The former Taoiseach, Mr John Bruton, said the Nice Treaty provided a foundation for the reunification of Europe after the Cold War which had built a wall behind which people like Hungary's Cardinal Mindzenty were imprisoned.
He pointed out that Warsaw, before the second World War, was a multicultural city of immense sophistication, of well-stocked shops, of prosperous people, a developed artistic life and a deep scientific culture.
All that was destroyed by a war in which six million Poles were killed and was eventually replaced by "the monotony of communism". But the Nice Treaty gave an opportunity to allow central and eastern Europe to flourish again and to realise their potential.
Mr Tom Curran, the party general secretary, said Fine Gael was spending €150,000 from party funds on the campaign.
Ms Mary Banotti MEP criticised the tone of the last Yes campaign as "Nanny knows best and go out and do what Nanny tells you." There was a serious job to do, convincing women voters in particular, she said.
Ms Avril Doyle MEP said: "We are reaping the rewards now for having sold the previous treaties on the basis of how much Ireland could get out of it financially.
"We have never stopped and explained the whole European project to the Irish people."
She continued: "We bought the votes down the years and didn't stop to tell them about the bigger project."
Opening the anti-Nice campaign of Republican Sinn Féin, Mr Ruairí Ó Brádaigh said establishment politicians had ignored the "decisive rejection" of Nice last year.
"RSF calls on the people to repeat this rejection of EU militarisation, centralisation and domination by the larger states," he said.