Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The democratic sequence is that the people changed the Constitution by way of referendum to enable the treaty to be passed. As we legislate we must reflect the terms of the treaty. While exceptional circumstances are provided for in one article, they are not mentioned in the other. If we were to include exceptional circumstances in the legislation we would be going beyond the treaty. I am not saying that would be unconstitutional but there would be discordance between the provisions of the treaty and the legislation and it might be a source of temptation to those who want to go to the Supreme Court once more. We must be careful to mirror the treaty in the legislation and not go beyond it because the treaty is what the Irish people decided on.