The Anti Lisbon group has reacted strongly to the decision of the Commission to deny equal airtime to opposing sides in the forthcoming referendum on the Treaty. The BCI said that it was no longer requiring “an absolute equality of airtime to opposing sides of the referendum debate during editorial coverage.”

Cóir spokesman Richard Greene said, “the political establishment had been calling for equal airtime to be scrapped since the No vote last year.

This decision is a politically motivated attack on free speech and the democratic process. Since the government failed to pass Lisbon by fair means, they are now resorting to foul measures. The change, which takes place from last Friday, absolutely undermined the spirit of the 1998 Coughlan judgment which required equal airtime to YES and NO sides within a referendum campaign.”

The BCI decision comes in the wake of obvious breaches of the McKenna judgment which saw the Government spending enormous sums of taxpayers funds on one-sided propaganda supporting the Lisbon Treaty and promoting the EU uncritically.

The McKenna and Coughlan judgments were based in part on Constitutional provisions on equality and sovereignty. Now that the political establishment have cast aside and pretensions as to the people being sovereign, they are quite prepared to overrule the Constitution in an attempt to railroad through the Lisbon Treaty.”