The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Michéal Martin, has reiterated the government’s promise that legal guarantees ensuring Ireland’s right to maintain its own family and education policy will be part of the Lisbon Treaty to before the Irish people again later this year.

In a speech given yesterday to the Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA), Minister Martin said that the Irish Constitutional protection to the right to life would also be protected.

He stressed that the Government’s approach to the rejection of the Lisbon treaty was to find “a way forward that would respect the will of the people”.

He said that other EU countries had agreed to “meeting our concerns to our full satisfaction”. This included agreement on Ireland’s retention of its Commissioner, as well as a “commitment that our positions in relation to tax, the Common Security and Defence Policy as well as family and ethical issues will be the subject of firm and unambiguous legal guarantees”, he said.

He acknowledged that concerns about such issues had “caused worries for many people”. He continued: “Those who had such doubts can now be reassured”.

These were issues that caused worries for many people, he said. but those who had such doubts can now be reassured. Minister Martin added that our ability to shape our own tax policy would remain unchanged and Ireland’s policy of military neutrality would be safeguarded.

“Likewise, the provisions of the Irish Constitution on the right to life, education and the family,” he continued. “These are important reassurances which represent meaningful responses to the concerns expressed by our people about the Lisbon Treaty”.

The size of the No vote revealed the depth of people’s concern on these specific issues, the Minister acknowledged. The Government, he said was “determined to meet those specific concerns with specific, explicit and unequivocal guarantees”.

Once such commitments were worked out in the necessary detail, he said that the logical way forward was “to put the Treaty to the people once more, in this new context”.