Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

I remind members of the Government opposite that it successfully managed to lose the first referendum on the Nice treaty by not listening to the legitimate concerns of many people about a slide into a military alliance which would not be accountable to this House. The tradition of this House on all sides has been to support Irish neutrality as understood in the context of the times in which people find themselves. If the Government refuses to grant time to allow this to be properly debated and all the fears and the legitimate concerns that go right back to the anti-conscription movement of 1918 to be articulated, it will hand a present to those people who do not want to support the European project. No benefit is to be gained from burying this matter through a secrecy of silence and stifled debate. There is every benefit to be had from openness and honest debate. Otherwise the actions of the Minister, Deputy O'Dea, would be rightly presented as subterfuge, dishonesty and covering up something about which he is not prepared to speak in public on the floor of this House, and I do not mean through the paid columns of the Sunday Independent.

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