Pat Gallagher (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

——being geographically North and politically South, with the Atlantic Ocean on one side, Northern Ireland on the other and a border of seven or eight kilometres with the South, I remember in those days it was very difficult to attract tourists and industry. I remember when Senator George Mitchell played such an important role in the peace process a business conference was held in Washington and I did an exercise on inward investment which showed that very few American companies were located in the Border counties and Northern Ireland. I believe that will now change because of the peace process and the stability in this country, and I wish well the business conference that will take place in Belfast in early May of this year.

As I stated, the European Union has played an important role in the International Fund for Ireland set up under the Anglo-Irish Agreement in the mid-1980s. Through that fund, the Union has promoted economic growth on the island. It has encouraged contact, dialogue and reconciliation between Nationalists and Unionists in Northern Ireland and on both sides of the Border, and has gone a long way to achieving the objectives set out by those responsible for the International Fund for Ireland and of course the European Programme for Peace and Reconciliation.

It is important to remember that prior to the European Programme for Peace and Reconciliation, we in the Border counties received INTERREG and the mainstream funds such as the Common Agricultural Policy and the European Social Fund, but the then Members of the European Parliament such as myself, Joe McCartan, Mark Killilea and, in the North, Ian Paisley, John Hume and Jim Nicholson made clear at that time that we wanted this to be additional, and it was. Too often new funds substitute for others, but this did not happen and that made a real impact.

In addition, funding has been provided through the European Regional Development Fund for general cross-Border co-operation projects between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland under the INTERREG programme. Total INTERREG funding for Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland from 2000 to 2006 was €182 million. As the House will be aware, INTERREG has been mainstreamed for the period 2007 to 2013 under the financial perspective which will be known as territorial co-operation.

I realise from the debate that has just started throughout the country that there will be scaremongering during the course of the referendum campaign. We will be told that a vote for the treaty is a vote for Peter Mandelson and an end to the Common Agricultural Policy. We will be told that by signing up to the treaty, Irish agriculture will run into difficulties. These allegations are wrong and dishonest. I appreciate there are concerns about the WTO and the attitude of Peter Mandelson, but he takes his brief from the General Affairs Council. Our Ministers at the General Affairs Council and the Ministers in agriculture and trade will do their utmost to ensure the outcome of the WTO will be fair and balanced and that there will be no major detrimental consequence for Irish agriculture.

If we turn our back on the Union and vote "No", I do not believe we will be cut off from regional and cohesion funding. However, if we do that, it will be extremely difficult for us to travel to Brussels and negotiate preferable treatment for Ireland in a Union of 27 with competing interests and demands.

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