Stars say 'Yes' Oscar winners' appeal
Jim Sheridan, Diarmuid Gavin, Pat Cox and Neil Jordan at St Stephen's Green in Dublin yesterday to push for a 'Yes' vote in the Lisbon referendum
Tuesday September 29 2009
TWO of the country's top film-makers last night backed a 'Yes' vote on the Lisbon Treaty, warning that it should not be left to politicians.
Acclaimed director Jim Sheridan and Oscar-winner Neil Jordan urged people to support the campaign in Friday's referendum.
And in a cutting attack on the political class, six-time Academy award-nominated Sheridan said: "I think it was nuts to vote 'No'.
"I think Yes is the only vote in town.
"Do we want to be on the edge of Europe?"
Sheridan said the running of the 'Yes' campaign could not be left to politicians.
"That's what we've been doing for the last 10 years to disastrous results, and we leave it to the bankers and what do they do? Worse," he said.
Jordan said he saw how the country was transformed by the EEC when he was growing up in the 1970s.
"It was a nice place then, it's a marginally nicer place now, and I think it's been a tremendous benefit to the place we live in," said Jordan, who won an Oscar for his screenplay of 'The Crying Game'.
Jordan claimed a 'No' vote would rebound through Europe. "For one thing, the Tories would leap on it in England," he continued.
"They'd welcome that tremendously and I think it would reverb through the whole European community.
"A lot of countries would have to address the constitutional issue which is a bit odd."
- SARAH STACK and JEANANNE CRAIG
