Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

They did not have to put it to the people, constitutionally. The way the debate emerged indicated that somehow the people had been denied. The degree to which parliamentary democracy was undermined in the debate was astonishing. Parliaments in parliamentary democracies are democratically elected but throughout the campaign during the last six weeks it was as if they were pariahs, unelected elites, yet they had been elected by the people. The Members of all those parliaments which may ratify the Lisbon treaty will have to go before the people in two or three years time.

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