PUBLIC SERVICES:RATIFICATION OF the Lisbon Treaty could leave essential public services such as health and education open to the control of multinational profit-seeking corporations, Joe Higgins of the Socialist Party said yesterday.
"A close examination of the Lisbon Treaty and of the clarifications which the Referendum Commission gave on this issue recently supports absolutely the view that the guarantee of a government veto on stopping essential services entering the WTO free-trade system will be removed," Mr Higgins said.
Speaking at a press conference in Dublin, the former TD said opponents of the treaty were working for a Europe that was "democratically run in the interests of ordinary working people and their communities rather than institutions which facilitate the super profits of industry with no guarantee of workers' rights".
Barry Finnegan, a media lecturer at Griffith College in Dublin, said the treaty would remove the veto on EU proposals for trade in health, education, social, cultural and audiovisual services.
"This would lead to a creeping privatisation of these services with the desire for profit determining all aspects of how the services are managed," he said, speaking at the same press conference. He called on the Government to explain how this veto would be maintained.