Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

I thank the Cathaoirleach for this opportunity to speak on the Lisbon treaty. It is good that the Government has selected a date, although it will be late in the political calendar and well into June. I do not know if all those who have holiday homes in Ireland and abroad will be able to return to their usual residences to vote. The fate of the treaty will depend on voting outturns and, so far, in the public debates and fora, including those sponsored by the National Forum on Europe, the people broadly in favour of a "Yes" vote are less motivated to vote with the degree of zeal and vigour that many in the "No" camp seem to feel.

I want to refer to what happened after a Labour Party meeting in Liberty Hall on Monday night, which is indicative of the deeper currents that disturb people regarding the fundamentals of where we are going as a society and an economy. It is fine for the Government to be bullish and cheerful, and to say to construction workers who are losing their jobs, people in north Westmeath and the Coole electoral area who are losing valuable local employment that has been there for 30 years, that all this is all right and that the treaty does not impact on it. However, there are deeper currents of concern among people regarding where we are going as a society and an economy.

Monday night's Labour Party meeting was chaired by former Minister for Education, Niamh Bhreathnach, and speakers included the leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Gilmore, and Mr. Proinsias De Rossa, MEP. A number of people were there who had no votes and no views and they were very agressive and agitated about the wider implications of this. It was not a free exchange of views in which people argued for and against the treaty with mutual respect, in particular the people arguing from a "No" point of view, some of whom were highly aggressive. They wanted to film all the speakers and had various media devices. That is all fine and good, but it is not a good sign when, after the meeting, somebody of the eminence, experience and commitment to democracy of Mr. Proinsias De Rossa, MEP, is brought to the ground. At least one of the people involved sat on his back and he had to be rescued by the Garda. I do not know if the excitement or determination on the issue got the better of the people involved and they acted out of character, but what happened was wrong. It poses a question for people involved in both sides of the campaign that, while we need a debate, it is important to respect the views of those in both the "Yes" and the "No" camps. People with conscience, after due thought and examination of the issues, believe on balance that Ireland should vote "Yes" to this treaty.

Even if it is a small, unrepresentative fringe on the "No" side, it is not appropriate to treat people as some kind of political Antichrist or to treat them with disrespect, spilling over into the kind of episode that occurred after the recent Labour Party meeting. Thankfully, Mr. Prionsias De Rossa has made a full recovery from the shock of the ordeal but the episode was a very dangerous indicator of what can happen when people get carried away on European issues.

There is a small group of people in Ireland with general and genuine disagreements with the European Union about how certain policies have progressed, who have taken that further and ended up demonising the Union as carrying some responsibility for everything that is wrong in Irish society. Some might say that the Government, in a certain sense, has been provocative by blithely saying that all is right with everything and that everything that is good in Irish society is a product of the European Union. This then puts objectors into a box and forces them to argue that anything that is wrong with Irish society must be laid at the door of the European Union.

We must have a balanced debate. We need to have an adult debate about the future of the country, where we go from here and whether, on balance, saying "Yes" to the Lisbon treaty is in the economic and social interests of the broad mass of people in Ireland. The Labour Party believes that, on balance, voting "Yes" to Lisbon is in the interests of Irish people. We are not urging people to vote "Yes" because the European Union is perfect or because there are no serious issues to be addressed by the EU. We do not deny that there are serious inequalities throughout the European Union but we believe the EU, for all of its faults, offers a mechanism to make progress on a broad range of issues that affect people in Ireland. Giving the European Union the additional powers set out in the Lisbon treaty will help to make the EU better and more effective in terms of carrying out those actions that benefit Ireland and Irish people.

In that context, it must be recognised that a Union of 27 countries needs better and more effective procedures than those designed for a much smaller Union. Ratifying the Lisbon treaty will allow for several changes to the EU decision making process, such as more qualified majority voting, which will ensure that more timely and effective decisions can be made in terms of how the Union addresses its business.

Like many others, I was rather surprised by the recent statements of the French Finance Minister, Madame Christine Lagarde, in which she set out, very robustly, her views on the harmonisation of taxation in the European Union. She set forward views which would, very precisely and particularly, have a very negative impact on Ireland. People seem to think that Madame Lagarde's proposals largely deal with the rate of corporation tax. In fact, however, they go much further than that. They actually deal with the basis of taxation in terms of the revenue flows.

What she and the French Government, under Mr. Sarkozy, would like to see is that revenue flows from taxation would flow to those countries which have the largest populations and the largest number of consumers, whether at retail or commercial consumer level. Ireland is a small island with a population of just over 5 million and if one was to do a head count, vis-À-vis the mainland states of Europe, it would not emerge well from a change in the fundamental tax base which would calculate tax flows to different member states on the basis of population purchasing, which inevitably would reflect population size and commercial activity in the actual member states. Madame Lagarde is not simply talking about headquartering, but about what one might call real-time activity, real purchases and real transactions having their root and origin in a particular country. In other words, she is talking about determining where the purchases take place, where the goods and services are actually consumed and then designating tax flows on that basis. That would have very serious consequences for the Irish economy.

I understand that today the Taoiseach is seeking assurances from the President of the European Commission, Mr. José Manuel Durão Barroso, that we will have a watertight guarantee regarding these changes and, in effect, retain our veto. This kind of proposal, which does not, in the case of France, give any serious consideration to the interests of smaller member states is likely to give rise to justified apprehension about its economic impact on Ireland.

The Government carries a responsibility for not having a strong contact base with governments throughout the European Union. We are living off past capital in the European Union, rather than maintaining the depth of contact within the European Union which was once the hallmark of Irish Ministers in the past. During the period of the last Government, the number of meetings which various Ministers chose not to attend and at which they were represented by our ambassadors — who are excellent people, by the way — was notable. This Government has been foolish in that regard. At all ministerial Council meetings, ambassadors obviously rank below any serving Minister, in terms of presentation and presence. The Government must examine how it has prosecuted our active presence in Europe. Various Ministers, from the Minister of Finance down, have not been in a position to attend as many meetings as was the custom and practice in the past.

In terms of reasons to vote "Yes" to the Lisbon treaty, the issues of climate change and human trafficking are important. Such issues can only be addressed by a country like Ireland in the context of co-operation and collaboration with other members of the EU. Collaboration and co-operation on addressing the issue of climate change is a profound reason for voting "Yes" to the Lisbon treaty. If we want to see an end to the scourge of people trafficking and forced prostitution — particularly of women and children — in Europe, the best way to deal with it is through wider European co-operation. Such wider co-operation will be significantly enhanced if the Lisbon treaty is passed.

As a woman politician, when I weigh up the balance sheet of the positive and negative aspects of the EU and of Ireland's membership of the community since 1973 it is clear, for example, that issues such as equality for women in the workplace in terms of pay, working conditions, maternity leave and so forth have been infinitely progressed by our membership of the European Union. That is a specific reason people, in particular women, who are interested in equality should strongly consider voting "Yes" to reinforce the strong tradition of progress on equality issues in Europe.

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