EU COMMISSIONER Charlie McCreevy said yesterday he had not read the Lisbon Treaty and that "no sane, sensible person" would read it either.
Speaking at a meeting in Dublin hosted by the European Commission, Mr McCreevy said there was an easy-to-read consolidated text, and the Referendum Commission had explained the treaty sufficiently.
"I don't expect ordinary, decent Irish people, or anywhere else in the globe, to sit down and spend hours and hours reading sections about sub-sections referring to articles of other sub-articles."
He dismissed concerns that Irish people were voting on a treaty they had not read, saying nobody reads such complex legal documents from cover to cover.
"For God sake's, we'd never get anything done in the Irish or any other system. That's making a big thing about nothing.
"I don't think any sane, sensible person would be spending this weekend or next weekend going cover to cover, and no matter who would do it there would only be a few experts in Ireland capable of reading it." He described the treaty as a "tidying up exercise" which might make it a harder sell for the Yes side. "There is not a big point that one can build a campaign around."
The Commissioner for Internal Market and Services said he was being constantly asked in Brussels how the campaign was going, and the consequences of a No vote would baffle the 12 countries that have entered the EU since 2004.
"We are held up as the best case example in Europe. All of the new entrants look to Ireland as a country that has benefited enormously from structural funds to the opportunities of being part of a big single market.
"I think it will be very difficult to explain [a No vote] to the other 490 million odd people in Europe when we are the country that has benefited greatly from membership of the European Union."
Mr McCreevy was speaking before a European Commission seminar on "Ireland and the European Union - Our Joint Economic Future", along with the Fine Gael and Labour spokespeople on finance, Richard Bruton and Joan Burton.
The meeting was interrupted by No campaigner Patricia McKenna, who accused the European Commission of acting illegally by hosting three Yes campaigners although the seminar was not about the Lisbon Treaty.
"I want to put you on notice that they are illegal and it is not permissible for the commission to do that. They are on record as saying that they would not interfere in the Irish referendum and yet that is exactly what they are doing."
Mr McCreevy said he never mentioned Lisbon in his speech to the commission and he was feeling quite tired. "I might look forward to a few days in Mountjoy," he quipped.
Later, accompanying Taoiseach Brian Cowen on a canvassing tour in Co Kildare, Mr McCreevy said the result of the treaty referendum would depend on turnout.
"It depends definitely on the turnout, without any question or doubt. The Nice One referendum proved that you have to have a reasonable turnout for the Yes side to win because the No vote seems to be fairly constant and to deliver," Mr McCreevy told The Irish Times.
Regarding his admission that he had not read the full text of the treaty, he said: "Does anyone ever read a finance Bill, and would you understand it in the first place? What you would read would be the explanatory memorandum."