SINN FÉIN issued a message that they are sternly opposed to a second Lisbon treaty referendum and dubbed Irish bankers "snake oil salesmen".

Toireasa Ferris, the party's European election candidate for Ireland South or Munster, argued, "Last year, 'yes' campaigners told us that no changes could be made to the treaty; that Ireland would receive no concessions if we voted 'no'. Yet the very same people now tell us they have achieved major concessions on a range of issues.

"Well I, for one, am not willing to accept that from the same snake oil salesmen who sold us Sean FitzPatrick's debts, particularly when we cannot see the details of these so called guarantees."

The party's new vice-president, Mary Lou McDonald, was one of a number of speakers to highlight the fact that almost one million voters voted against the treaty the first time around.

The economy was to the fore throughout the weekend and, regretting the thousands of recent job losses, Louth TD Arthur Morgan said, "It is the bankers; the so-called banking regulations and the sinking Fianna Fáil/Green party government that deserve the sack. Our party, our comrades in trade unions and our partners in SME (small and medium enterprises), will not allow the banks to go on wrecking this country. All of those involved in corruption must be investigated, charged and sent to jail."

A united Ireland is never far from the top of the Sinn Féin agenda and the party argued it remains there "not as rhetoric, nor as a matter of inherited tradition, but as an issue of practical and political urgency".

The party's Dáil leader Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin cited the way the current "tax and commercial differentials mean that trade in the Border counties in this jurisdiction is suffering badly" and he claimed "Irish unity makes economic sense as well as being a democratic imperative".

Martin McGuinness garnered rapturous applause when he made a play on the lyrics of 'The Town I Loved So Well', saying: "As a plain-speaking Derry man let me say that Unionist majority rule is 'gone and gone forever'. Like apartheid in South Africa it is consigned to the dustbin of history."