Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

I would wish that this is the way the debate on this matter would proceed over the period ahead.

I want to refer to three points the Taoiseach made in the course of his contribution and to ask him to consider them. He made the point with regard to voting "Yes" to a Lisbon treaty "we have all signed up to" as it was put. Does he accept we have not done so? The Irish people have not signed up to it, although as the transcript will show, that is what he claimed.

The Taoiseach also stated that if the people vote "No" a second time to the treaty of Lisbon, there will be no treaty of Lisbon. We always believed we were equal members of the European Union and voting "No" once should have been adequate. Why is it that we in Ireland have to vote "No" twice - it also voted twice on the Nice treaty - for the Lisbon treaty, if that is the result to be, whereas for France and the Dutch once is sufficient, in order to revisit the actual texts, full stops and commas? Why are we different? Why is our membership not of equal status?

The first point I had asked the Taoiseach to consider in regard to voting "No" did not mean that we were going to face a situation of being pushed out of the European Union yet, while the Taoiseach in part acknowledged that in the course of his contribution, he went on to describe our situation post a second "No" to Lisbon as "half in and half out". That type of language only feeds the point I was trying to scotch from the outset. We are full members of the European Union and irrespective of how the Irish people decide on the Lisbon treaty a second time, we will remain full members of the European Union, not half in or half out.

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