The Sunday Business Post today has an editorial in favour of Lisbon 2.

We are firmly in support of a Yes vote in the Lisbon Treaty referendum.

This is a rather obvious position for the paper to take, and one which nobody should be either surprised nor shocked at. In any dealings with the Sunday Business Post (with the exception of one journalist) the Sunday Business Post, whilst editorially in favour of Lisbon has always been fair and decent in any dealings.

However, the newspaper leads on NAMA, spends many many pages discussing Nama, and their much longer (and leading) editorial talks about Nama. Almost as an afterthought, the smaller second editorial on Lisbon points out

The public is well able to seperate the issues.

But the newspaper (and every other) gives significant amount of attention to Nama and has done so for the past few weeks. There has been little meaningful coverage of Lisbon.

Yes (as the Post points out), there has been a long summer break and in the absense of any meaningful media activity (on any subject) by the Government – the media (and opposition) have taken interest in Nama and the ongoing disputes between Fine Gaelers (Garret Fitzgerald criticising Fine Gael’s position on Nama as reported in today’s Sunday Tribune) and economists (again, Garret has a swipe at them). There has been almost little or no debate or discussion about Lisbon.

The public may not in fact be able to seperate the issues, and many of them may not see why they should have to. The referendum in 32 days is the only likely opportunity for the public to pass judgement on Nama itself, and they may give the answer to a question the Government isn’t even asking them.

If the Government, and the Yes side care enough about Lisbon, then it needs to be discussed more, and if papers like The Sunday Business Post care about a Yes vote, rather than spending all of their time talking about Nama, giving proper solid coverage of the second campaign is vital.