Martin Mansergh (Tipperary South, Fianna Fail)

I join in congratulating the sub-committee on its report on Ireland's future in the European Union, outlining the challenges and issues faced and opinions expressed. I also congratulate it on the quality of its hearings which included some appropriately robust exchanges.

The Taoiseach, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs have been exploring sensitively, both internally and with our European partners, ways of identifying and addressing the core concerns of voters which contributed to a rejection of the ratification of the Lisbon treaty last June in order to break the impasse in the European Union which this has created. At the same time, the swift passage of events and major international problems that have arisen since serve to highlight the value of belonging at the heart of the European Union, without which, as a small sovereign state, we would be even more vulnerable than we are, and also the urgency, from the point of view of our EU partners, of completing the current reform process.

One point that needs to be better explained is that a treaty ratification process involving 27 member states and requiring unanimity is implicitly a two-stage process. If the Lisbon treaty were ratified, this would become more explicit. In the first round, every country's opinion is canvassed, either through its parliament or electorate. It is not the case that at the first "No" the treaty is dead and that other countries which have not yet done so can or should be stopped from expressing their opinion on the grounds that it is now redundant. The process is not about brandishing irrevocable vetoes but about trying to find a united way forward which involves accommodating the reservations, concerns and interests of others as well as our own. If it is obvious from the first round that there is and will be no consensus, which would be surprising, obviously it cannot proceed. If, on the other hand, there are only two or three countries which have a difficulty, it is sensible to see if the matter can be resolved. That is what happened in the case of France and the Netherlands when they rejected in referendums the constitutional treaty. Their concerns were accommodated without unduly upsetting others and they, with the rest, except ourselves, have or will have ratified a modified Lisbon treaty. Something similar should happen in the case of Ireland, particularly if, as I said, it appears likely that this will be the only country withholding ratification.

This is an issue we should approach in a spirit of friendship, partnership and co-operation, particularly since we have had, by and large, such a good experience of membership of the European Union in the past 35 years. We chose not to proceed to vote on the constitutional treaty after the French and Dutch "No" votes and after seven years there is no appetite among our partners to embark on a second renegotiation followed by a third round of ratification. If any one of us as an individual was a member of a club of 27 that required unanimity to effect a change in the rules, how many of us, if we found ourselves in a minority of one, would insist that our view must prevail and that the other 26 members simply would have to drop their planned rule changes? If we behaved like that, not merely would we be unpopular but fellow members would not feel inclined to go out of their way to oblige us if we ever found ourselves in difficulty and needed the help and understanding that we had denied them. There are many voices, some of them shrill, urging us to play hardball or be uncompromisingly rejectionist. Few, if any of them, have ever sat round the Council table. It is easy to make unrealistic demands from the outside.

I believe our European partners are prepared to go a long way to meet our concerns. If that is the case, we ought to reciprocate and it is in our interests to do so. If there is one theme that permeates the entire report, it is the loss of influence, goodwill and self-confidence, both real and feared, as a result of our Lisbon treaty vote. It is not so serious yet because our partners hope and believe the situation can be retrieved. If that belief were to prove ill-founded, both we and our partners would be forced to conclude that Ireland's attitude and long-standing policy towards the European Union had fundamentally changed. We would be overturning, at the behest of few Members in the Oireachtas, 35 years of positive and constructive membership of the European Union and retreating to the outer edge, no doubt self-righteously nursing our various wounds and grievances, of which every country has some. We would simply be treated as not really wanting to be part of the European project anymore. This would be a tragedy with profound consequences for our political standing in the world, our economic well-being, our national morale and self-confidence and, perhaps, even our long-term viability as a nation state in what is now an ultra-globalised world. While we should look for whatever guarantees, reassurances and comforts that we can obtain, nothing is a substitute for ensuring we stay at the heart of European Union decision-making, particularly in order that we can shape the response to new situations that cannot always be predicted in advance and protect our interests. We have to see the wood from the trees. We have and always will have legitimate interests, preoccupations and concerns. The issue is whether we can best look after them from within or whether we should listen to siren voices calling on us to step outside. Do we want to act as a proxy for interests hostile to European integration? Are we not likely to find ourselves diplomatically marooned without a paddle with all the hopes and confidence of four decades — perhaps they were illusions — cut short?

Different sectional grasps and interests in this society used the process to advance their agendas at our peril. Conditionality lost the Lisbon treaty vote and could finally lose us our hard won position at the heart of the European Union, even when that might not have been the intention. Not one of our concerns, objectively analysed for their substance, or all of them together, are worth paying that price. The European Union and the United Nations are the fora in which Ireland has taken its place among the nations of the earth. Countries, like people, need good friends, partners and neighbours. A relative self-inflicted diplomatic isolation will not make for happiness. We should make it clear inside and outside the House that we want with our partners to break the impasse in order that all of us in the European Union can move ahead in harmony together.

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