THE Svengali behind the team coalescing to front the YES to Lisbon Mark II campaign is headed by Brendan Halligan, chairman of the Institute for International and European Affairs (IIEA), which receives thousands of Euro from nearly every government department and state funded body yearly.
Brendan Halligan
Following the disastrous effort of the Irish Alliance for Europe, headed by Ruairi Quinn, in the first referendum (the one that came up with the wrong result) it was determined that the next effort would keep politicians in the background and that personalities from civic life — youth, women etc — would front the campaign. However, following efforts to unearth such interesting celebs, the Eurocrats realised that many such people were usually unable to answer half-serious questions about the EU or the Lisbon Treaty. As a result, four rather tired Euro political hacks have formed the new team to lead the campaign with former president of the European Parliament Pat Cox the main ‘personality’, UCD Professor Brigid Laffan the academic, former Fianna Fail general secretary Martin Mackin (now with PR company Q4) the organisational brains, and Halligan the master strategist.
Brigid Laffan
This team plus other YES campaigners met the minister for Europe Dick Roche and officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) at Iveagh House last Tuesday to plan their campaign. Also present were members of Generation Yes, a youth group set up by Halligan (73), which involves young FFers, Labour and Green Party members. At least one of Halligan’s employees at his consultancy CIPA (main activity, lobbying against restrictions on tobacco in Europe down the years) helped to set up this group.
Halligan would be well known to the DFA, which has been funding his IIEA for over 15 years — last recorded contribution, €32,626 for 2007. Halligan’s financial MO is to secure ‘membership’ subscriptions of €6,000 pa from nearly all government departments and state agencies. It does not publish accounts and only parliamentary questions from Independent TD Finian McGrath elicited information from each government department earlier this year about the extent of their largesse. In total, the IIEA received over €820,000 in 2006 with much of this coming from public funds. The IIEA used to publish detailed accounts but ceased doing so after Goldhawk published a series of articles 8 about the extent to which the Institute was funded by the public (see The Phoenix, 27/9/02 and passim).
The IIEA is unashamedly pro-Lisbon and has produced literature and propaganda in favour of all European treaties (although Halligan began political life as an opponent of the European Community in the early 70s). In April of last year, the Institute was reported as saying it could not take sides in the Lisbon referendum as it was a charitable institution in receipt of public money — the McKenna judgment forbids the use of such funds. Thus, Halligan’s Herculean efforts for Lisbon are purely voluntary and unselfish.
Related posts:
- Institute for International and European Affairs (IIEA)
- -Fine Gael to lead Lisbon campaign – Kenny
- Ireland “not alone on Lisbon” – Libertas
- Bob Crow: Let’s face down the Lisbon Treaty
- Sarkozy says he’ll visit Ireland to help pass Lisbon Treaty
- Lisbon Treaty Allows for Death Penalty Across E.U.
- Lisbon poll ‘insignificant’ – SF
