I should love to write this weekend about the Flood report, or about the public finances in the aftermath of the leaked Department of Finance Memorandum, or on the Comptroller and Auditor General's report on administrative failures of, amongst others, the Revenue Commissioners.
I can't recall any weekend on which there has been so much of topical interest upon which to comment. But it would be irresponsible and self-indulgent for me to spend time on any of these subjects when so much is at stake in the referendum in three weeks' time. These domestic topics are proving a dangerous distraction from the crucial decision we are going to take on October 19th.
For there is anecdotal evidence - and it has been my own experience in the last few days - that public frustration with the Government's handling of the public finances before and since the election, and reactions to the indictment of a former Fianna Fáil minister for corruption, are tempting some people to "hit the Government" by voting against ratification of the Nice Treaty. Frankly, that would be a suicidal public reaction - for it is our own vital interests as a people and a society more than the Government that would be gravely damaged by a second negative vote on this treaty.
No one doubts that we have been major beneficiaries of EU membership, for outside the EU we could have achieved none of the spectacular gains that have shifted us in a relatively short period of time from being by far the poorest country in northern Europe to being one of the better-off states. Of course, some of these gains have been simply an automatic consequence of becoming part of a community that is committed to freeing trade, to helping its poorer regions to develop their economies, and to sustaining the economy of rural areas.
But there has been much more than this to our success within the EU. For we have secured benefits from membership running far beyond our bare entitlement as members.
Why has this been the case? Primarily because from the very outset we sought to make a positive contribution to the community we had joined. In particular we used our five presidencies of the Council of Ministers and European Council of heads of government to advance the interests of our partners as well as ourselves, gaining their respect for our commitment, our energy and our efficiency in that role. And, indeed, because our efforts exceeded their expectations of what a small, and in the early stages relatively poor, member-state could contribute, we also won their admiration.
Among the achievements of successive Irish Governments were the successful conclusion of the negotiations for the first three Lome Agreements with several score developing countries; the resolution of Britain's problem with the EU budget in Dublin in 1979; the successful resolution of the Franco-Italian problem with Spanish wine which in 1984 cleared the way for the entry of Spain and Portugal to the EU; the facilitation of German re-unification at two Dublin European Council meetings in 1990; and skilful drafting of the bulk of the Amsterdam Treaty five years later.
Because of our efforts on all these issues, and our generally constructive approach to the evolution of the EU, we have repeatedly secured not merely our entitlements under community policies, but much than our entitlements. Let me give just four examples.
With 1 per cent of the EU population we secured 6.5 per cent of the Regional Fund and at some periods up to 13 per cent of the Social Fund. Uniquely, we were accorded a bonus of 13 per cent on our milk quota. Once again, in 1976 we alone were given authority to increase our fish catch, as a result of which we are now catching four times as much fish as in 1975 whilst the other member-states have been held to their 1975 level. And we were also given the funds needed to expand our fishery protection fleet. We were given authority by the Commission to offer a 10 per cent tax rate for the IFSC in Dublin.
None of these major concessions needed to be given: they were all products of an Irish policy that won us friends at both Council and Commission. Now you would need to be a starry-eyed idealist about international politics to believe that we would have secured any of these benefits if, instead of being constructive during the past three decades, we had blocked the future progress of the EU for no reason that we could explain or that our partners could understand. We must be clear that if we now disrupt the EU by blocking its enlargement, we can expect no future goodwill, either from our partners or from the applicant countries. Most of the arguments put forward for saying No relate to matters that are not in the Nice Treaty - such as the Rapid Reaction Force, created under the provisions of the Amsterdam Treaty, which our electorate ratified four years ago. Or claims about the creation of a European superstate - which finds no support anywhere in the terms of this treaty.
As for the treaty itself, we are told that it has been dictated by the large states seeking to dominate the EU. But the larger member-states, who before we joined had 71 per cent of the votes in the Council, and who today have 55 per cent, will after this enlargement have 53 per cent of the votes - for 75 per cent of the EU population. And Ireland will have twice as great a voting strength as its population would warrant - whilst Germany will have less than half what its population would justify - 9 per cent of the votes for 21 per cent of the population.
As for the Commission, under this treaty the large states have agreed to give up their second member of that body - and have also agreed that in any future re-organisation the Commission, small and large states must be treated equally. This is not a bad deal; it is one with which the smaller states are very happy. They would certainly not welcome the renegotiation that would have to follow a rejection of the treaty by us.
The only other provision of the treaty itself that has been criticised at the Nice campaign meetings I have attended is the provision for "Enhanced Co-operation" - allowing eight or more states to go ahead with a project, on condition that it does not interfere in any way with the functioning of the existing community, and that any other state can join whenever they want. This reflects the fact that the existing member states have all felt that in an EU of 25 member-states it would clearly be unwise to allow any one state to veto further developments that do not interfere with the present working of the EU.
What is there in all this to justify prejudicing Ireland's position in the EU? And if the treaty were once again to be rejected in this referendum, and our Government is then asked just why it was rejected, what on earth are they to answer? These are the issues on which voters should now be reflecting.