Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)

One of my earliest political memories is the black and white grainy television footage of the former President, Patrick Hillery, and the former Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, signing the accession treaty for our membership to the then EEC in 1972. It has been an overwhelmingly positive experience for Ireland. Deputy O'Donnell listed the benefits in pounds, shilling and pence from the Structural Fund for the farming community and other areas. I challenge anyone to deny that EU membership has been a successful experience for Ireland in economic, social and political terms.

The challenge for Members in selling the Lisbon treaty is to raise the level of debate and expectation from the filthy lucre and to sell it at a higher level of idealism and political aspiration. There is a danger in some quarters that we may oversell the treaty, claiming it is a panacea for all our ills, which in many respects it is not. While the European movement has been successful for Ireland, this is an administrative treaty that takes into account a Union that has grown incrementally from six member states to nine, 12, 15 and 27, comprising a population of 500 million people. If one was running the mid-Cork board of the GAA and the number of clubs increased in a similar way, one would have to change the standing orders to ensure efficient decision making. I accept this might be an overly simplistic view of what is contained in the treaty but it illustrates the point.

If we were writing it ourselves as a single member state for 27 member states, we would ensure we did not lose our commissioner. However, this has been hammered out in great detail, involving compromises between all member states. In all negotiations and deals, we learn to live with compromise. On balance, it is a good deal and we should sell it as such to the people.

What has been visibly absent from the debate to date is the Government selling it. There is a danger that the treaty vote will be lost. We have the forces that have been consistent since day one in opposing it. They have also been consistently wrong. It behoves those of us committed to the European movement to get up off our backsides and sell it. This side of the House has organised a nationwide series of meetings on the treaty. There is a visible absence, however, from the debate of the Government parties which runs a substantial risk of the treaty being lost.

It is regrettable a link between the treaty and the world trade talks has been created in the mind of the farming community. It was welcomed that the IFA, the main farming organisation, decided to support the treaty in January. However, since then it has rowed back and watered down this commitment. Undoubtedly, Mr. Mandelson is damaging the prospects of passing the Lisbon treaty on 12 June. That is a failure of the Government and the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food at EU Council level to rein in and issue appropriate instructions to Commissioner Mandelson. I ask individual farmers to ask themselves what they will achieve if they vote "no" and the treaty goes down. Where will we stand on the morning of 13 June as we pick up the pieces and attempt to continue negotiations on CAP reform? Would our negotiating position be strengthened or weakened? It is patently obvious that the WTO negotiations have nothing to do with the Lisbon treaty and our negotiating position among Ministers and Heads of State would be significantly weakened during the mid-term "health check" of the Common Agricultural Policy. Farmers would do well to take stock of these issues.

The usual red herrings have been used in the debate, namely, corporation tax, neutrality and the loss of identity, the supposed merging of Ireland into a blancmange of European identities. The contrary is more true now than it has ever been. In Europe, we stride more confidently as Irish people than we did in the early 1970s when we joined the EEC. This is due to the prosperity we have attained with Europe's assistance.

To ensure that Europe is in a position to make efficient and effective decisions, it must face the challenge of emerging eastern countries and the political instability therein that has only recently ended. Europe must be resolute and efficient in its decision making processes, the subject matter of the treaty. I would encourage everyone to vote "Yes".

By virtue of inactivity and political failure on the Government benches to handle the WTO talks better, there is a substantial danger that the Lisbon treaty and those talks will be deliberately or otherwise linked in the minds of members of the farming community. It is not too late to rescue the talks and the treaty, but it will require resolute and immediate Government action. I regret that there are no signs of that, but I hope it occurs. Time is not on our side, as there are only six weeks until polling day. At this late stage, I encourage the Government to commence its campaign to sell the Lisbon treaty.

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