TÁNAISTE EAMON Gilmore has denied that he engaged in a “public posture” of opposition to the second Lisbon referendum when in fact he supported it.
Mr Gilmore said the second referendum involved a different proposition from the first referendum, and he insisted his position on the Lisbon Treaty was absolutely consistent.
He was responding yesterday to assertions in a leaked US diplomatic cable written by US ambassador Thomas Foley in July 2008 and sent to his colleagues in Washington and other EU member states.
Anti-Lisbon campaigner Declan Ganley said the leak exposed Mr Gilmore’s “two-faced” campaigning on the issue and said the Tánaiste should resign. Fianna Fáil called on him to make a statement on the issue to the Dáil.
In the cable released by WikiLeaks, Mr Foley states: “Gilmore, who has led calls against a second referendum, has told the embassy separately that he fully expects, and would support, holding a second referendum in 2009. He explained his public posture of opposition to a second referendum as ‘politically necessary’ for the time being”.
A month earlier, following the “no” vote in the first Lisbon referendum in June 2008, the Labour leader opposed the holding of a second referendum, saying the “Lisbon Treaty is dead”.
Mr Gilmore told French president Nicolas Sarkozy during a visit by the latter to Dublin in July 2008 that there was “no basis for believing that a second referendum would produce a result which is any different from the first one”.
Asked yesterday if he was embarrassed by the WikiLeaks revelation of his views, he said the second Lisbon referendum was a “different proposition” from the first. “It was always the case that we could not put the same proposition a second time to the Irish people and of course the same proposition wasn’t put a second time to the Irish people. What was put to the Irish people in the second referendum was a different, if you like renegotiated proposition.”
He pointed out that the first treaty made no provision for an Irish commissioner, or a commissioner for every member state. The second one did provide for a commissioner for all states. Likewise, while the first treaty led to concerns about the harmonisation of corporate tax rates, the second contained a protocol on this issue.
Asked about Mr Foley’s claim that he had engaged in “political posturing”, the Tánaiste replied: “No, I don’t think I ever used that phrase”.
Libertas leader Mr Ganley said the leak showed the stupidity of claims that the US was supporting the no side.
