Fianna Fáil will mount "an enormous national campaign" to ratify the Nice Treaty, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has said. At the launch of his party's €500,000 campaign yesterday, he warned it would be a "real tough battle" to secure a Yes vote.
Asked if he was worried by the latest Irish Times/MRBI poll showing the Yes side 12 percentage points ahead with a high proportion of undecided voters, Mr Ahern said: "I would be worried on the 19th if we don't get a Yes vote."
The only thing that continued to disappoint him was that the Don't Knows were still "fairly large", despite the fact that information leaflets had been sent to every household by the Government and the Referendum Commission and there was extensive media coverage of the issues.
On the question of access for immigrants from the new member-states, he said: "Contrary to suggestions that have been made, we will have exactly the same rights as every other member-state in the matter of migration control."
Mr Ahern denied there had been a change of policy, as the agreement reached between the EU and the applicant countries last year provided that member-states would continue to apply their own national policies on free movement from the new member-states for an initial two years after accession. "In Ireland our policy will of course be determined by conditions in the domestic market," he said.
Asked about economic issues which have become entangled with the Nice debate, he said there was no change in the status of the special savings scheme.
On the possible restoration of university fees, he said the Minister for Education was setting up a review group on access to third-level education. "There is absolutely no decision, he has hardly set up the review." He asked however: "Is it right that people who are on the top echelons of salaries in this country should get precisely the same arrangements as people who are in the lower levels?"
On taxing children's allowances, he said: "I don't know where that came out of because there has been no discussion with me, at Cabinet, in my party or anywhere else about that issue."
The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Cowen, who has replaced Mr P.J. Mara as the party's director of elections in the referendum, said other issues must be addressed "on their own merits" and kept "quite separate" from Nice. "We all understand the concerns which presently exist about our economic situation. We understand the outrage and anger which has greeted the publication of the Flood tribunal's interim report. Very serious legal and governance issues have been raised.
"As a concerned citizen and practising politician," he added, "I do not want to see any hiding-place or fertile ground for corrupt practices. All of the administrative and legal arrangements necessary to ensure that we can have no repeat of what the Flood tribunal has uncovered must and will be put in place, But these are issues which must be addressed in their own terms and on their own merits."
Referring to a Warsaw statement last week by 10 applicant countries on the importance of ratifying the treaty, Mr Cowen said: "This certainly means that the argument by the opponents of Nice that they are against the treaty but support EU enlargement rings very hollow indeed. Are we going to block the legitimate aspirations of the applicant countries who have suffered so much under totalitarian regimes for over 40 years since World War Two?"
He paid tribute to the "vision and support" shown by opposition parties in the campaign for a Yes vote. Later on Today FM's Sunday Supplement programme, Mr Cowen said there was "no basis whatsoever" for reports that backbench TDs were campaigning to make him party leader. Mr Ahern had his "full and undivided and total support as he has of every sensible person in this party at the present time".