Madam, - Proinsias De Rossa MEP (June 25th) is wrong to imply that I misquoted him when I wrote (June 20th) that his "suggestion ( The Irish Times, June 18th) that Ireland should question whether it should stay in the EU, or form a new relationship with it, similar to Norway's, deserves strong criticism".
I fail to see how this is different, in spirit, to what he has been saying since the referendum result. On June 18th in Strasbourg, he said: "If the Irish people continue to be dissatisfied with Lisbon in whatever form it is finally agreed between us and the rest of Europe, then Ireland will have no option but to renegotiate its relationship with the Union." I also think he was underselling Ireland when he said, in the same speech, that "Europe has very little to lose if it loses Ireland".
This is not the post-referendum position an Irish MEP should communicate to Europe. Even if he thinks that Ireland is not too important to Europe, he should be concerned that citizens from a pro-European country rejected the treaty because "lies, damn lies and statistics defeated the truth", as he puts it.
The referendum outcome should not be interpreted as a rebellion against the current status of our EU membership. Mr de Rossa should communicate in the European Parliament that this result should be seen as a litmus test of what could have happened in other member-states. The real debate on the ramifications of this result should not be in Ireland; it should be throughout Europe. Such a debate should include a discussion on how the EU can better communicate its objectives and proposals to its citizens, as too many people here voted against the Lisbon Treaty because they did not understand it or misunderstood what it was about. - Yours, etc,
JOHN KENNEDY, Knocknashee, Dublin 14.
Madam, - I wish to respond to the comment by Chris O'Reilly (June 26th) blaming an "EU diktat" for "the demise of another of our great indigenous industries - the growing of beet for sugar production".
Production of sugar from sugar beet in Ireland was never an economically viable activity and was possible only because of subsidies that cost Irish consumers more than €60 million a year (at 2005 prices). Regardless of the changes in EU sugar quotas or the Doha round of trade negotiations, sugar should never have been produced in Ireland. Therefore to raise this issue regarding the Lisbon Treaty is irrelevant and disingenuous.
As a starting point for further research I would direct the reader to an article by Alan Matthews published in The Irish Timesof January 26th, entitled "Irish sugar production is not an economic activity". - Yours, etc,
PETER BYRNE, Weston Road, Dublin 14.
Madam, - I'm puzzled. If Ireland's membership of the EU "caused" the economic boom since the late 1990s, did it also "cause" the economic stagnation, mass unemployment and emigration of the previous 20 years? - Yours, etc,
BRIAN HANNEY, Shantalla, Galway.