Ned O'Keeffe (Cork East, Fianna Fail)

It is with great disappointment that I speak on the Lisbon treaty. The European Union, which we joined in 1973, has been good to Ireland. We voted in favour of the Rome treaty in 1973, the Single Market in 1987 and the Maastricht treaty in 1992. The Nice treaty was rejected in 2000 but we voted in favour of it in 2002. We voted against the Lisbon treaty last week.

European Union funding has been very generous to Ireland. We qualified under CAP regional funding, social funding and the Cohesion Fund which was very important to our infrastructural development. The European Union has contributed €85 billion to Ireland since 1974. The Irish people seem to have forgotten that but the Europeans may not forget. That generosity has driven the Irish economy, given us an education system, third level colleges and a very modern infrastructure and road network and has developed agriculture from subsistence to modern agriculture, with exports in the region of €8 billion to €10 billion today.

The people were misled by the "No" campaigners who, after 34 years of membership of the EU, have achieved their goal. They misled the people by saying we could renegotiate from a different position, which is false. I believe there are very few options and we are now damaged goods in Europe. I have no doubt there will be time to resolve the problem, but if the 26 countries have ratified the treaty by Christmas, Ireland will be left as the odd one out. The European Parliament elections will take place next year and it is the policy of both the Council of Ministers and the EU Commission to have all procedures in place for these elections. There is not much time left. Europe has sympathy with our problem but it does not have the answers. I congratulate the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Micheál Martin, on his fine performance in Brussels on Monday. I wish the Taoiseach every success tomorrow at the Council meeting where he will be accompanied by Deputy Martin. At this meeting the Taoiseach will have the sympathy of his colleagues in Europe, which is good. However, deep down they will all want this issue resolved to make progress and to put a proper consolidated Europe in place.

Europe has done much good for Ireland. As a rural Deputy I wish to refer to the threat and criticism that the IFA put in place on the WTO talks which had a bearing on the outcome of the referendum. Farmers were told their cattle would only make half the price they currently make, that cheap South American farming produce would flood Europe and that one litre of milk would only be worth 24 cent as opposed to today's price of 36 cent. These are the issues that were not addressed. People outside the farm gate who provide a service to Irish agriculture and supply goods to it, supporting jobs, heeded this message and voted against the Lisbon treaty. These people have seen many unnecessary business closures and rationalisation taking place in Munster and especially in County Cork in the past four years. There is a tendency for people to privatise companies in the public market, whether they are co-operative or private companies. Such companies are either to be traded on the stock exchange or on the grey market where a small number of people get rich quick. This is not good enough. This affects Irish farmers and workers and this tendency comes from Europe.

There is another reason people voted down the treaty. I campaigned vigorously in 1974 as a young farmer for entry into Europe. It was a very successful campaign. The vast majority of people and organisations who campaigned against entry at that time are still around and are more or less the same people, with the exception of Mr. Ganley and Mr. MacEvaddy who come from the business sector. We had the same organisations with more faces. We had a vigorous campaign in 1974. The Treaty of Rome came under threat, people did not understand it and so on.

I urge the Government to give leadership in this area and for a further referendum called Lisbon II to be held, as we cannot remain outside looking in. The benefits of Europe speak for themselves. Ireland is a small peripheral nation on the Atlantic which has no future half-in half-out. We can see the advantages of the single market and single currency. There would not be the stability on dairy goods today were it not for the single currency. We have the lowest interest rates ever, springing from Europe and our membership of the single currency. I ask the Irish people to vote "Yes" to Lisbon II and bring us into Europe, which is our rightful place.

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