Morning Ireland

The mystery of the missing page six

by Sean Whelan, Europe Editor

“I faxed it up,” admits journalist.

Fresh from running Libertas' European Election campaign office in Brussels, former Danish MEP Jens Peter Bonde is back on the anti-Lisbon campaign trail, sending out a critique of the Irish guarantees and declarations. (In a helpful note to editors, he says: "I have left the European Parliament and am no longer presenting partisan views.")

In his critique of the Irish declaration on military neutrality, he states in bold letters: “Please note that a page here is still missing; page 6 HAS NOT BEEN LEAKED YET.”

He draws this information from the Irish Times and RTÉ websites, and the implication is that something is being held back.

Sadly, we have to inform Mr Bonde that there is no conspiracy, only an old-fashioned cock-up involving old technology.

I got leaks of the document from two sources – one at the foreign ministers' council in Luxembourg, the other from a source in Brussels. The Brussels source sent me a PDF file of the text, which was unfortunately missing page six. My Irish Times colleague Jamie Smyth got the same PDF. We both sent it to our websites.

But I had also received a hard copy of the complete document in Luxembourg (a good hour before the PDF file arrived). Unfortunately, in the temporary summit centre in an exhibition hall on the outskirts of Luxembourg (the permanent one is undergoing renovations), there was no scanner to turn the complete form into a PDF. I tried faxing it to several RTÉ fax machines, but to no avail – ye olde steam-powered fax let us down.

Now back in Brussels, we have scanned the document, page six and all, and it's available on the RTÉ website for all to see. Mystery solved.