LIBERTAS FOUNDER Declan Ganley has told an Oireachtas subcommittee that if certain conditions were fulfilled he could be persuaded to vote Yes to the European fiscal treaty.
He told the EU referendum subcommittee that he was opposed to the treaty but this would change if Ireland received concessions on its bank debt and there was a “road map” to a united Europe.
The treaty was “all stick and no carrot”, Mr Ganley said.
It was a “Teutonic tonic” for imposing controls on countries such as Ireland and Spain that were experiencing the worst economic problems.
He described the treaty as a placebo “designed to placate the German popular press and electorate”.
Ireland had found itself with a “hugely disproportionate” amount of bank debt. “We didn’t borrow this money and morally we are not responsible for it.”
The treaty was “a waste of time” and was “like giving morphine to a cancer patient”, he said.
Asked by Fianna Fáil Senator Terry Leyden which way he would be voting, Mr Ganley said he was voting No, but added “in this case, No means ‘maybe’.”
He said he would like to go out there and say it is in “our best interests to vote Yes”. If there was a deal on bank debt and some kind of “road map to a united Europe”, he said, “then I will vote Yes”.
He was a businessman and this was a negotiation.
Fine Gael TD Mary Mitchell O’Connor said: “I don’t think it is responsible, Mr Ganley, to be saying, ‘maybe Yes, maybe No’.”
She said he was acting “in a very coy way” that was “quite disingenuous”.
Socialist Party MEP Paul Murphy said Mr Ganley was “trading a vote to institutionalise austerity in return for what would be crumbs in terms of the bank debt”.
Cllr Andrew Muir of the Alliance Party told TDs and Senators a Yes vote would enhance stability. It gave him “a sense of pride” to see the Tricolour and the European flag flying together. Roderic O’Gorman of the Green Party said the membership would take a decision on the referendum within the month, and he personally was in favour of the treaty.
At a separate meeting in Dublin last night former PD leader and minister for justice Michael McDowell said voting No would be akin to inflicting a “fatal toxic shock” to our economy.
“A No vote would put Ireland in an even weaker position than the one were in already as regards the current economic realities,” he said, adding that such a move would make Ireland a riskier prospect for investors and would not offer any route map to economic recovery.
