The leader of the Labour Party has accused the Minister for Justice and the Tánaiste of failing to engage with the public on the work of the European Convention.
Mr Pat Rabbitte also accused the PD Ministers of hiding their "Euroscepticism" behind bogus concerns. In Dublin yesterday, Mr Rabbitte said much of the work of the convention was taking place "in an almost eerie vacuum". While the debate was lively, too few people were engaged in it. "There is a real danger that out of all this activity, and to paraphrase The Godfather, they may be about to make us an offer we can't understand."
In an address to the Association of European Journalists, he said that in the wake of the defeat of the first Nice Treaty referendum, there was no excuse for the political system to underestimate the importance of engagement with the people again. "But there are signs that the same mistake is in the process of being made."
He also suggested that Ms Harney and Mr McDowell were hiding their "mainstream Euroscepticism" behind stated concerns about protecting Ireland's criminal justice system against EU encroachment. Their real fear, Mr Rabbitte maintained, was that an EU constitution would become a template for a social Europe with a social market economy, rather than the neo-liberal economic model favoured by them.
"Some of our esteemed leaders, such as the Minister for Justice and president of the Progressive Democrats, Michael McDowell, have put forward very important views and opinions in the recent past, based on their great expertise and learning," he said. "There has been considerable solemn intoning about issues like, for example, the importance of protecting our system of criminal justice from outside interference."
People were entitled "to wonder if, behind the high-minded rhetoric, there was any hint of prejudice. "Would opponents of the Berlin criminal justice system prefer the Boston version instead?" he asked. "Is concern about protecting our system of criminal justice really a veil to disguise mainstream Euroscepticism?"
He suspected Mr McDowell was raising fears "because they, and a segment of the Irish business community, feared what the constitutional treaty might become: a template for realising a social Europe and the social market economy as opposed to the neo-liberal agenda as the European model. "This is the central agenda, what this constitutional exercise ought to be about," Mr Rabbitte said. "Boston or Berlin, which is it to be?"
He also accused European leaders who are in favour of war on Iraq "as well as those, like our own, who want to have an each-way bet" of failing to listen to their own people.