Noel Treacy (Galway East, Fianna Fail)

I am mindful of what Deputy Quinn has said. While other colleagues spoke about circulating copies of the constitution to households throughout the country, it is a document of 500 pages. We have given much thought to this. We have published some documentation on the website and we will publish more. There is a lo-call facility for the public who can request to have the constitution posted to them. We are considering past referenda where documentation was available and where the requirement from the public was very scant in their desire to procure that documentation. Last Friday evening, at the National Forum on Europe meeting, Proinsias de Rossa MEP presented me with a copy of the French magazine about the constitution, for which I was grateful. I have asked the officials in my Department to consider the feasibility of how we could amend our constitution so that it will be similar to that which was published in France. I await the response on this. We will do our utmost to get the information out to the maximum number of people.

I want to confirm what Deputy Quinn said in regard to divorce laws and so on. The European constitution has no relevance or role in this area; it is a matter for Ireland and our own laws. The only power the European Union has is the power we give it as a sovereign State by way of referendum. These are contained de facto within the constitution.

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