Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on this debate on the Twenty-eighth Amendment of the Constitution Bill. On the last point raised by Deputy Burton, I would not expect her to be completely au fait with Fianna Fáil's activity and the 50 meetings that have been held in recent weeks or that will be held in the weeks to come. These meetings, which are being held in all parts of the country, are open to the public and have been very well attended. Only last Friday night, I attended one such meeting in Cork which attracted as many as 500 people. The Deputy can rest assured that Fianna Fáil intends to do all it can. We will commence an active campaign when we officially launch it in the coming weeks.

I will address some of the specific aspects of the reform treaty and explain why it is imperative that Ireland endorses it, but first I want to put the treaty in a wider context. The forthcoming referendum will be the sixth referendum on a European treaty since I was first honoured to be elected to this House. While I have played an active role in each treaty, I was particularly involved in the Treaty of Nice because I helped to negotiate it as Minister for Foreign Affairs. Each referendum has had its own character and threw up its own issues but the basic arguments on both sides have tended to be similar. This is because in essence the debates have revolved around competing visions of Europe and of Ireland's place in it. Most of the time, those of us who support Ireland's active engagement in a developing European Union have been able to connect with the public. We have been able to draw on the underlying positive attitude of the Irish people towards Europe, as indicated in recent eurobarometer polls, to persuade them to come out to the polling stations and convince them that a "Yes" vote makes sense for them personally, for their families and their communities and for the nation.

While we can never take the electorate for granted, I believe that we will succeed on this occasion and that the people will vote to ratify the reform treaty. The arguments in favour are unassailable and I have absolute confidence in the maturity and good sense of the Irish public. However, not least from my experience of the first Nice referendum, I am aware that one should never be complacent. It is not enough merely to make the case, it has to be made in a way that persuades busy people that their personal stake in the outcome is sufficient to make it worthwhile for them to exercise their franchise. It also means ensuring that every voter feels that he or she has sufficient knowledge of the issues involved to make an informed choice. This requires those of us who argue in favour of the treaty and of Europe to do all we can to set out the issues involved clearly and simply. We must also examine the points we are advancing to determine whether they are indeed relevant to the lives, aspirations and anxieties of the voters.

In many ways, the fundamental arguments in favour of the treaty are the same as they were in successive referendums since 1972. Their truth has been amply demonstrated by experience. The European Union is, above all, about consolidating peace and democracy across the European Continent. What was the scene of the bloodiest wars in the history of the world and the most sustained and murderous genocide is now peaceful. Old enmities have been cast aside in favour of partnership and co-operation, and war between the members of the Union is now unthinkable. The record shows that membership of the Union, and indeed the prospect of membership, has strengthened and sustained young democracies in southern and eastern Europe.

If we did not have a European Union when communism imploded, how would the progressive forces in those countries have given a vision on reconstructing their societies in accordance with equality and the rule of law? We would have reverted to the narrow nationalism which characterised past political development in those countries. I remind Deputies that the evidence is before our eyes. Yugoslavia imploded because of a refusal to look upon the European Union as that country's political destiny. Other countries looked to the EU as a pole of stability and an opportunity for reintegration into the Continent of Europe, with the result that, during Ireland's Presidency in 2004, I had the great privilege of attending Áras an Uachtaráin as they returned to the European fold.

The Union has also helped to create and underpin economic growth and prosperity throughout Europe. The Single Market and economic and monetary union have helped to create the largest and most affluent consumer market in the world. Barriers to trade and investment have been swept aside in a way that respects social solidarity, the environment and the cultural particularities of each member state.

As we all know and as we ought constantly to remind ourselves, Ireland has perhaps gained more than any other country from EU membership. The scale and pace of our transformation have been dramatic. The radical change in our economic situation was largely based on being able to take advantage of the Single Market to attract inward investment, find new customers and escape undue dependence on the British market. Twice as many Irish people are at work now compared with the beginning of the 1990s and the country is dramatically wealthier. While we are now funding our own ambitious national development plan, support from the Structural Funds was crucial in earlier investment in our infrastructure and human capital.

Irish agriculture continues to depend hugely on the Common Agricultural Policy, even after the sweeping reforms it has undergone. Thankfully, former Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Ray MacSharry, was able to steward those reforms in ways that allowed new opportunities for Irish agriculture. On the basis of what has been agreed for funding the CAP until 2013, I contend that Europe must remain the focus of agricultural interests and promoting Irish agriculture. The increase in commodity prices which, thankfully, is improving incomes in our farming community and the fact that our agriculture is grass based provides us with an excellent opportunity to enhance our competitiveness, particularly in respect of beef, because our competitors must face the recent hikes in the cost of grain and other commodities.

Rather than considering this issue negatively, we will continue to monitor and address the challenges. Today, the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food met her German counterpart to discuss issues which will ensure the mandate of the Commission continues to respect the need to avoid dislocating markets in Europe, particularly given the importance of beef to the development of our agricultural industries. We should not consider that aspect solely in respect of the WTO, important as the upcoming negotiations will be. Let us be clear that the worst case scenario will not be allowed to happen in that respect. We must also consider the European Union development of agriculture in the context of freer trade generally. Using the sensitive product regime and the quota system provides us with the mechanisms within what is happening at the Geneva negotiations to protect us quite adequately in that respect.

Obviously, the Government is continually monitoring this, and our Minister is acutely aware of developments in that arena and informs the Government on a weekly basis. I hope that one of the great positive constituencies for European Union development in Ireland, namely, the farming and agricultural community and the rural community, will look to this context as a means by which we will continue to adapt, modernise and improve our agriculture, rather than succumbing to the idea that we are in a static situation that would see a downward spiral.

The European Union has been a steadfast partner in the search for peace in Northern Ireland. Today, it is still helping to entrench the settlement by supporting cross-community reconciliation. Only last Monday, I visited Mr. Peter Robinson, the First Minister designate in the new Administration and the present Minister for Finance, and with Commissioner Danuta Hübner from Poland helped launch the PEACE III and INTERREG programmes in Northern Ireland.

It is important to point out the PEACE III programme is the only country-specific programme in any part of the European Union to promote reconciliation. We all know from the history of Europe and the changing borders within the European Continent how much of a case could be made for many border communities throughout the European Union to try to obtain that type of funding. To be fair, the European Union has always shown the principle of solidarity towards this country in helping to resolve conflict on the island, and this continues to the tune of hundreds of millions of euro. Funding is provided for 7,000 projects on the ground, across communities which have been divided traditionally not only by the Border but by the conflict itself. Let us not forget the tremendous seed corn of reconciliation and rapprochement those funds represented in terms of the ability of communities which were in the past divided to find common ground and interests and move forward together. This is something we should not take for granted and it should be highlighted as an attribute of the European Union that has had a very positive effect in our efforts at peace building in Ireland.

The example of the Union was crucially important to leaders such as John Hume. In the bleakest days of the Troubles, it helped to demonstrate that peace between the bitterest of enemies was possible though practical partnership. Working together as equals in the European Union context has added an important new dimension to the relationship between British and Irish political leaders, just as working with other Europeans has helped to liberate us from an excessive preoccupation and fixation with Britain. If the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone are today looking down benignly on their people, the European Union can rightly claim at least some of the credit.

Let us not forget that Ireland has also undergone a social transformation during the period of our membership. In many ways we are a more tolerant, open and equal society. The attachment of the Union to equality and non-discrimination has been a driving force behind this change. We were reminded of this fact last week on the demise of Dr. Patrick Hillery, given his singular achievement in bringing forward the equal pay directive as social affairs commissioner at that time. Irish women and men, as citizens and as workers, have benefitted from increased opportunity and improved quality of life.

When, in Eurobarometer polls, citizens across Europe are asked if membership of the Union has been of benefit to their country, we are consistently among the most positive of all. This is entirely rational and understandable. I have no doubt that for most Irish people their view of Europe has been formed and continues to be formed by some or all of the factors I have listed. However, we need to ask ourselves, as we near the end of the first decade of the 21st century, if these arguments alone will continue to shape the thinking of young Irish people, those whose support for the European Union project will be crucial in the decades ahead.

It is worth recalling that even the last people born during the Second World War are close to retirement age. For their grandchildren the idea of war between France and Germany is ancient history. The youngest voters in June's referendum will have been born after the fall of the Berlin Wall. How meaningful do they find appeals to recall the European unification of Germany and of Europe? They have grown up in an affluent and confident Ireland. They do not remember how things were in the 1970s and 1980s, nor can they be expected to appreciate the scale of the change the European Union has helped bring to our country. How then do we convince them that they should follow their parents in appreciating the importance of the Union and voting to support this treaty?

The key to that question lies in the fact that this generation of young Irish people is by far the best travelled and outward-looking ever. They are idealistic and they are also conscious that the world is changing in ways which will pose great challenges to how they will live. The European Union has a central role to play in responding to those challenges, and this treaty is important in helping equip it to do so.

Climate change threatens the world's environmental and ecological balance. Its consequences for us all, and above all for the world's poorest and most vulnerable people, are potentially catastrophic. It is our children and grandchildren who are most at risk of experiencing the worst and most dramatic changes. Even within the past 12 months, the price of basic foodstuffs has risen and in some places doubled — the price of rice has doubled and desertification and the level of flooding continues to increase throughout the world. There is a real problem for the poorest of the poor.

The European Union, as a regional entity, is the largest contributor of overseas development aid in the world. Young Irish people want to know in what way they can contribute to making sure the world tries to deal with these pressing latest problems. There is a continuing imbalance between north and south trade that we must at some stage resolve if we are to deal with the issues of migration, justice and the ability of people to fend for themselves in their own countries which, thankfully, this generation in Ireland is experiencing for the first time since Independence. If they want to make a constructive contribution and try to do something about this, voting "Yes" on 12 June is a means by which they can do it. They can take up the democratic challenge and vote for something which will equip the European Union to be more effectively a partner with other parts of the world in dealing with these pressing problems, not just for the future but as issues are happening now and as we see changes taking place.

Having listened to the managing director of the World Food Programme only last weekend, there is a depletion of stocks to historically low levels, the worst in 30 years, because of what has been happening. This is not only because of environmental and climate change, desertification and drought but also because commodity prices have changed fundamentally in the past 12 months in a way that has not been seen with the price levels of basic commodities for some time.

These are the means by which we can put the case to young people and people generally in Ireland that the European Union is not simply about markets or economics. It is also about being a force for good in the world. The European Union has been the mechanism for the transformation of Europe. When we saw the implosion of communism only 17 or 18 years ago, what would have been the political, economic and social development of Europe if we did not have the European Union's example of what practical co-operation between states can bring? It is an issue that needs to be addressed. Those on the "No" side need to convince me and those like me as to the basis on which the Europe we see today would have progressed without the European Union being in place. There is no doubt it has been the revolution of ideas by reason of co-operation rather than competition that has changed the political balance of Europe and brought stability to it, when in the past it was a Continent that was a byword for genocide and war. Young people are to the forefront in demanding and expecting a political response to these issues that are transnational in nature.

The programme for Government pledges us to take a series of ambitious steps, above all in curbing CO2 emissions and promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy. We are determined that this programme will be implemented and our specific targets met over the four years remaining in the life of the Government. However, it is obvious that Ireland cannot do much by itself. Internationally, it is Europe that is continuing to take the global lead in combating climate change. As was reaffirmed at the recent European Council meeting, the European Union is pledged to make major cuts in emissions by 2020, even if these cuts are unilateral. We will make still more significant cuts if we succeed in winning sufficient commitments from others.

The European Union is at the heart of that important international debate and it has the huge task of trying to persuade the United States and the major industrialising states such as China and others of the need to go in the right direction. This treaty, for the first time, specifically recognises the issue of climate change, at the behest of the Government, in the negotiations. It confers upon the Union the competences it needs in this field and in that of energy policy generally, a major strategic issue for Europe going forward. Is it seriously suggested that Ireland can enhance its energy security policy without working with others, given the sources from where our natural gas supply will come in the years ahead and the importance of the European Union having the collective capacity to develop a bilateral relationship with the Russian Federation in a way that enhances the prospect of security supply rather than allows the fragmented Europe to be manipulated for its own particular internal domestic political reasons by a Russian Federation that would have a greater leverage than would otherwise be the case if the European Union did not exist? These are fundamentally important questions.

Another area in which Europe is a world leader is that of development. Many young Irish people, whether as volunteers, donors or activists, expect to see such leadership. Collectively, through the efforts of member states and of the Commission, the European Union is easily the largest aid donor internationally in terms of absolute and relative expenditure. That strong commitment to maintain that role, with the specific target of the 15 longer-standing member states reaching the target of 0.7% by 2015, is something we have pledged to do by 2012. While I would not claim that all European aid is fully effective or as well co-ordinated as it should be, Europe is indeed to the forefront in honouring its obligations and in pressing others to do so.

During the course of this debate there will be many other opportunities to amplify and articulate further on these and other questions, but this House must make the debate relevant for people not on the basis of the past raison d'être for the European Union but for the future, and explain the reason it is important that a Union of 27, perhaps more, must have the basic tools and mechanisms for a decision making capacity that is effective and fair and that honours the basic solidarity between states that is at the heart of the Union's success to date. If people are enabled to examine this debate in that context, all Irish people, particularly our young people who are looking for a need to affiliate politically, not only in national terms but in international terms, will find that the European Union, and our being at the centre of that Union and all its activities, is the best way Ireland can show it is an international citizen upon which those who are less fortunate than ourselves can depend.

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