Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

I am delighted to have this opportunity to contribute to this debate. I was unable to participate earlier this morning as I was attending a meeting of the Joint Committee on Health and Children. One of the issues being discussed at the committee meeting was risk equalisation. I have made the point before in different fora that there are probably about ten people in the country who understand risk equalisation but most people know it is good for us and it makes health insurance affordable, particularly for sicker and older people. I can see a connection between risk equalisation and the subject we are discussing.

Due to the fact that we are democrats we accept the will of the people and this will be reflected in the Taoiseach's deliberations tomorrow. We got a result last week but we certainly do not have an answer. The challenge is to work with our colleagues in the EU to find an answer but it is not quite clear what is that answer. It is not just about treaty-making or law-making. It is about how we connect our citizens and our strategic interests of security and competitiveness, environmental issues and migration with the concerns and values of ordinary citizens.

We belong to a union of democracies. Unlike the United Nations, the European Union is a union of democracies, of people who share our values and our perspectives and with whom we share a common history. One would think during the debate that we belonged to this organisation that was always out to get us but the experience is very different. I stated during the debate — it was said by someone in Fine Gael which I repeated — that influence is worth far more than vetoes. We will never succeed in Ireland on the basis of our size, whether it is in the European Parliament, in the European Commission or in the Council of Ministers meetings.

We succeed because we have been strategic in the alliances we have formed with others who think similarly to us and those alliances change. For instance, our alliance in agricultural issues is with the French and in taxation matters we form alliances with the British and others. During the debate we were hearing arguments from people who had an opportunity to vote for Irish people — when David Byrne was nominated as Commissioner he was voted against by them or when Pat Cox as an Independent Member was proposed as President of the European Parliament, an Irish Member voted against him yet that former Irish Member was telling us all why it was so important to have the power to nominate somebody. This is a person whose record proves they have not the capacity to support somebody who did not seem to come from their particular perspective.

I do not wish to be drawn into rehashing the campaign because it is over and as a democrat I accept the result but I am deeply disappointed. As Deputy Quinn said we must all reflect on the fact it was a large turnout for a referendum. Unlike the first referendum on the Nice treaty where there was complacency on all our parts and where the turnout was poor we believed that a better campaign which was better organised and more structured would produce a better turnout and a different result and so it did. However, on this occasion there was a relatively high turnout and 300,000 more people voted "No" on this occasion and many of them for the first time. I accept it is too early to analyse the reason for a whole new group of 300,000 people who have now voted "No". We need to reflect on this.

It is often the case that when the courts interpret the law as enacted by this institution, they look to the debates that took place to discover the motivation. We need to have some robust research carried out in order to inform all of us on the exact reasons people voted "No". I agree there were domestic reasons and there were also confused reasons. I heard everything talked about from abortion to neutrality and I have heard those reasons in every debate. Migration is certainly an issue and immigration was an issue in some working-class parts of this city. However, other people voted "No" for none of those reasons and from the perspective of teaching "them" a lesson, whatever that means, or that we had the luxury to do so with the comfort of knowing we were still going to belong to the EU in any event.

It is difficult to see where we go from here. If the Deputies from 25 out of the 26 counties in the country wanted to proceed in a certain direction and one county was holding us all up, I can imagine that a poor view would be taken in this House.

I know our European colleagues will express solidarity because it is a union of democracies, of people who understand the importance of elections and of consulting the electorate and accepting the outcome. However, they will equally be impatient to move forward because we all know that the manner in which the Union operates with 27 member states is not effective. It has taken us seven years, more than 200 politicians and 27 governments, to be able to succeed in negotiating the Lisbon treaty. We know how difficult treaty-making is within the European Union.

Tomorrow the Taoiseach will reflect the will of the people. It is traditional on occasions like this that all parties who have been in Government will support the Taoiseach when he is on the international stage. I have heard of possible efforts being made to gazump what is going to happen there and I hope that does not happen. If there is anything we need to do now it is that we need to move forward together on a realistic basis, recognising our limitations and our strengths.

Colleagues in the European Union from member states which have recently joined, who remember vividly as young adults growing up in countries where Communism was the norm and where today they take their children to museums that were formerly torture chambers, in particular know the significant developments that have taken place on this Continent over the past 50 years. They, more than most, appreciate what the European Union signifies.

I do not believe the vote was a vote for isolation or a desire to become more insular or to disconnect from Europe. However, I do not see a simple solution to the dilemma we face. I said during the campaign and I believe it to be the case in terms of investment and dealing with investors. It queers the pitch and makes it more difficult to explain Ireland's position within the European Union.

Deputy Quinn mentioned the alliance which had good posters, but many of them alleged things about the Lisbon treaty that were completely and utterly false. I would like to see us fighting election and referendum campaigns on the basis of facts. While it may be arrogant to suggest this, if we had concentrated on the facts, we would have won but we had to deal time and again with the issues of neutrality — that our young people would be conscripted — abortion and euthanasia.

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