Referendum Debate in Leixlip

kildare | eu | event notice Monday September 07, 2009 16:07 by Eoghan O'Neill - People's Movement eoneillbassist at yahoo dot ie

Public Meeting

Intel chief refuses invitation to debate Lisbon Treaty in Leixlip

Following the refusal of Intel’s General Manager, Jim O’Hara, to comment on our principled criticism of Intel’s Yes entry into the referendum debate, we issued an open letter inviting Mr. O’Hara to a public debate with the undersigned on the Treaty. This debate was to take place in St. Mary’s GAA, Leixlip, on Tuesday, 15 September. We hand-delivered a letter to Mr. O’Hara containing the invitation (copy attached) to the mailroom in Intel on 1 September.

His response, forwarded through a communication from an Intel colleague, has been to decline our invitation due to “scheduling difficulties” with his diary.

We hold that this reply is an evasion of the charges raised by the local branch of People’s Movement regarding Intel’s intervention into the political process of the constitutional referendum.

We charged Intel with:

• placing hierarchical and psychological pressure on its 4,000 employees to vote in a particular way

• attempting to compromise the local community and local suppliers in north Kildare who are in receipt of patronage and a range of grants from the Intel corporation

• embarking upon a corporate spend of hundreds of thousands of euro amounting to an undermining of the entire referendum process

• launching a bizarre initiative which, if successful, could lead to the ending of Ireland’s current low business taxation rate (12.5 per cent to Germany’s 30 per cent) enjoyed by Intel for many years. This is because Article 93 of the Lisbon Treaty proposes an amendment to article 113 of the Consolidated EU Treaties, which would make harmonised company tax laws throughout the European Union a mandatory requirement, subject to unanimity.

Despite Mr. O’Hara’s absence, we confirm that our meeting in Leixlip on 15 September will proceed. It will focus on the twin themes of how EU policies aided and abetted the recession in Ireland and of rebutting the undemocratic intervention by the Intel Corporation and Ryanair into the referendum campaign. All are welcome.

Michael Quinn
Sec. North Kildare Branch
People’s Movement