Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

If "race to the bottom" means anything in the context of the current debate it means political parties flying kites that appeal to the baser instincts of ordinary people, excluding people from the Irish workforce and rolling back on the basic rights contained in the Treaty of Rome, not to mention the more recent directives on workers' freedom of movement. That is what is wrong about the debate the Labour Party has initiated.

I agree with Deputy Ardagh, although I have no evidence, and I have a suspicion that the Labour Party has had focus groups looking at these issues. I wonder about not just those brave activists in the Labour Party who wrote to The Irish Times describing the policy as disgraceful and not in the least wedded to traditional Labour Party policies but there are more within the left wing movement, never mind the Labour Party, who are not pleased about this. What does Deputy Quinn, head of the European movement, think of all this? I wonder whether the Labour Party is fully behind this issue and it is a question it will have to answer.

On the matter of the services directives we are questioning the basic provisions at the core of the entire European principle because we are at this cross-roads and people are seeking ways to improve their political position and to draw some electoral dividend. It is evident they have lost the argument on the economy and every other argument and are looking for some other hook on which to hang their debates in the future. There is no doubt that Ireland will be at the front of the queue in the liberalisation of services. We have the most open economy and rely almost entirely on services for our GNP. While there are vested interests who will lose out and suffer there is a much greater body, who are unknown at this time and may still be in school or college and cannot form themselves into an angry protest outside Leinster House, who will not thank us in ten or 20 years' time when we take short-term decisions for short-term gain, rather than looking to the long term and realising it is future Irish workers who will benefit from our braver decision making at this time.

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