Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

The Taoiseach can rest assured that the Fine Gael party will do all in its power to work towards the successful ratification of the Lisbon treaty by the Irish electorate and I say that in the broadest sense that we can assist here.

Yesterday, the Taoiseach indicated that the Bill would come to the House the week after next. What is his intention with regard to establishing the referendum commission which will have the task of dispensing accurate information to the people? How does the Taoiseach see that being resourced and how soon does he expect to receive an answer from the High Court with regard to the chairperson?

On previous occasions, I have stated that the sectors in Irish life who were concerned about the Lisbon treaty are still sore because of their perception of how directives have been interpreted here. The classic example is that of fishing, where Ireland has interpreted a directive in a way that requires a criminal charge to be applied for even the most minor indiscretion - and I stress "minor". All other countries of the Union have an administrative regime for minor indiscretions. Deputy Jim O'Keeffe produced a Private Members' Bill to deal with this and the best legal advice available to us stands up.

The Government should consider providing the Oireachtas committees which deal with European affairs and European scrutiny a remit or mandate to examine at least some of the directives where we know difficulties were created to see whether it is possible to implement them in a more common sense or flexible fashion without losing the intent or import of what they state. I do not mean all of the directives because there has been a river of them. This would be beneficial from the Government's point of view. I know from personal experience that various sectors throughout the country had difficulties and people told me they could not vote for the treaty on the previous occasion because of their perception that red tape was strangling business. In the interests of dealing with these concerns, will the Government examine this matter? This would allow us to deal with the genuine concerns of people and have this problem eased so that when they go to vote, these obstacles will have been removed from their thought process.

In the event that Ireland approves the Lisbon treaty the fact that we are to have reviews of the Common Agricultural Policy and the Common Fisheries Policy will allow us to look to the future in a way that we have not been able in the past and at the potential that will exist over the next 20 years with the rise in world population and the quality of what we can produce here, and the opportunity that exists for the fishing interests in terms of the review of the Common Fisheries Policy.

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