A message from Shane Molloy, Chairperson of European Movement Ireland:

There is much analysis needed to understand fully why Ireland voted No in the Lisbon Referendum. In my view, the No campaign pushed three main themes that each generated a ‘national fear’ for the Irish people about the EU: 

We are losing too much – we lose a Commissioner, we lose an MEP and a feeling that we were giving up our neutrality (a issue imbedded in our national psyche) were just a few examples of this.
We will be bullied – double majority was used as an example of how the ‘big States’ would force through legislation, not in our interest, notably in the area of tax (another red line for Ireland is protection of our 12.5% tax rate).
We are being ‘hookwinked’ – the complexity of a legal document was used to claim that “there are many things hidden in this Treaty that you don’t know about”, and rumours circulated, for example, that abortion could be legalised through some back door mechanism.
These themes, along with a wealth of ‘protest voting’ on domestic issues unrelated to Lisbon, resulted in a misconception about the consequences of a No vote. This included the misconception that ‘we can negotiate a better deal’. That included the belief that by voting No, the Irish Government would be empowered to renegotiate a better deal, ensuring that neutrality, corporate tax and abortion were better protected for Ireland.
So what is next? Personally, I feel that there is a need to tackle and understand the fears that people have about the EU. For those myths about the EU that emerged in the recent debate, the facts need to be clearly and correctly communicated so that people are better informed. And for those justified issues that people may have about our Union, we need to engage in a jargon-free dialogue with the aim of showing that the benefits of our EU membership far outweigh any possible losses to ‘national sovereignty’. Under the new management of EM Ireland, we aim to be at the heart of that education process, so that whatever happens in the future, the Irish people will judge the EU on the facts rather than the ‘what if’ scenarios that were painted too often in the recent campaign.