Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

We will leave that aside for the moment. The first point is that no decision has been taken on a second referendum. The second point is that the situation at the moment is as the people decided last May. The third point is that the 26 other member states have given their views as a result of that and, fourth, it is my job to work with them to see whether the concerns raised in the referendum might possibly be addressed so that we can make an assessment of where we go from here. Finally, the idea that we can reject the treaty and there are no consequences is cuckoo land.

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