Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)

I thank Deputy Timmins for sharing time. I welcome the Taoiseach's announcement earlier today that the second referendum on the Lisbon treaty will be held on Friday, 2 October. This will, I hope, provide the many young people who did not vote in the previous referendum an opportunity to do so on this occasion. In addition, I hope the Government has learned lessons from the way in which it mishandled the previous campaign. In the wake of the first referendum, many post mortems were held. Last June, the European Union was thrown into an institutional crisis when 53% of the people of Ireland voted "No" in the referendum. However, I am happy to state - as I have done on previous occasions - that the Members of the Oireachtas who represent Clare played their part in the campaign by ensuring that it was one of the few counties which voted "Yes". I am sure that if those Members show similar resolve, there will be another "Yes" vote in County Clare on 2 October.

The previous campaign was badly timed and the relevant issues were not communicated to the people in an effective manner. A series of badly timed interventions added further to the confusion. It was never a good idea to hold the referendum when the office of Taoiseach was being transferred from one Leader of Fianna Fáil to another. Fine Gael always contended that the timing was wrong and that insufficient time was given to explain the extremely complex issues that were involved.

Those on the "No" side communicated their message far more effectively than those in the "Yes" camp. Their posters, literature and media appearances succeeded, even if much of what was said in respect of the treaty amounted to simple scaremongering. Many of the points raised by those on the "No" side were not contemplated by the treaty and, in fact, had nothing to do with it. Many people will recall the famous poster which showed three monkeys and carried the legend "The new EU won't see you, won't hear you, won't speak for you". That was the "No" side's version of Europe. The poster to which I refer and others - including those which stated that people would lose money, that Ireland would lose its Commissioner and that which displayed a reprint of the 1916 Proclamation and asked if this was for what our forefathers died - proved extremely effective. These various elements contributed to the success of the "No" campaign and the "Yes" lagged far behind in this regard.

Fine Gael is extremely pro-Europe and has been since Ireland joined the then EEC in 1973. I have always been strongly of the view that Ireland's place is at the heart of Europe and that is where it should be for the foreseeable future.

During the previous referendum campaign, however, when I was on the campaign trail in Clare explaining the treaty and drumming up support for it, I was taken aback by the three ill-timed interventions to which I referred earlier and which had a massively negative impact on the campaign. The first of these interventions occurred when the Taoiseach informed the people that he did not read the Lisbon treaty in full and yet he expected them to ratify it. In light of the fact that he, as the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, was involved in drafting the treaty, that statement was extremely surprising. The second intervention came when the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment appeared to be confused with regard to the number of European Commissioners there are at present. The final intervention, by our EU Commissioner, Mr. McCreevy, added salt to the wound. The latter flew home to inform us that he had not bothered to read the treaty and that he would not expect any sane, sensible person to do so.

The ink was hardly dry on the agreement the Taoiseach and the Minister for Foreign Affairs concluded at the recent EU Council meeting in Brussels in respect of rerunning the referendum when Commissioner McCreevy again intervened and informed a gathering of accountants that all the politicians of Europe "would have known quite well that if a similar question had been put to their electorates by referendum, the answer in 95% of the countries would probably have been "no" as well". That may well be the case but I doubt if all politicians in Europe would have explained the treaty in as poorly a manner as Commissioner McCreevy or the Government.

I hope Commissioner McCreevy, the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment will take time to read the treaty in full and will familiarise themselves with the institutions of Europe and how they work. In that context, I suggest they each pack a copy of the treaty when they go on holidays in August.

Ireland is not the only country which has encountered problems in ratifying the treaty. In Germany, for example, a number of MPs and law-makers - they are mainly from the left-wing Linke party - went to the Constitutional Court to try to stop the treaty. They claimed that it is undemocratic and undermines the German Parliament - that is, it cedes too much to Brussels. The German Parliament has already ratified the treaty, but President Horst Koehler has not yet signed it. The decision of the court was interesting in that it stated that the Lisbon treaty "could not be adopted until the sufficient legal groundwork for parliamentary participation as foreseen in the constitution has been laid". This means is that the court has spelled out in law that any changes to the Lisbon treaty or any expansion of the EU that will impact on German sovereignty must be voted on in that country's parliament. The court has required that additional legislation be introduced in the German Parliament. German MPs will be obliged to vote on this when it is enacted prior to a general election to be held on 27 September next.

To date 23 of the 27 member states have ratified the treaty. The other two countries which have not yet signed on the dotted line are the Czech Republic and Poland. President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic says that he will be last man standing and that he will only sign after the Irish referendum and when the President of Poland has signed. Now that the German court has made its decision, the only thing delaying the Polish President is the outcome of the referendum here.

Once again, the eyes of all Europe will be on us in September and October. However, that is not the reason we should vote "Yes" in the forthcoming referendum on the Lisbon treaty. We should vote "Yes" because Europe has been good to us. It has been positive in respect of our infrastructure and our farming community and has been good to the people since Ireland joined in 1973. However the principal reason for voting "Yes" is because most of the concerns that were raised during the previous campaign now have been addressed in the new protocol negotiated in Brussels by the Taoiseach. I do not believe it ever was the case that either military neutrality or abortion law in Ireland was threatened by the adoption of the Lisbon treaty. Nevertheless, as Deputy Timmins noted, when a Millward Brown poll was commissioned as to the reason for the treaty's rejection in Ireland, 33% of the electorate believed the claims that the introduction of conscription to a European army was included in the treaty, while 34% believed we would lose control over our country's abortion policy. The fact that the EU is to enshrine these matters in a new protocol is helpful in allaying fears on this occasion and it is to be hoped that such issues will not be raised by the "No" campaigners this time and that they will focus on the facts in respect of the treaty, rather than trying to frighten people as to what might happen.

Among the other main issues of concern was our rate of corporation tax, the prospect of losing a European Commissioner and workers' rights. We have succeeded in retaining a Commissioner and when the position becomes available, the Taoiseach should consider someone with great experience who could do the job properly and who could secure a prominent portfolio. It will be important to secure a good portfolio for Ireland as there will be 27 Commissioners next time around. Consequently, it will be important to secure one of the five most prominent posts, particularly given developments in respect of the world trade talks. Although many names have been suggested today, I suggest to the Minister, Deputy Martin, that on his retirement next year, the present Ambassador of the European Commission to the United States would be a good candidate. Moreover, an additional important consideration for the Minister is that such an appointment would not cause a by-election.

Another important issue is that Ireland has the right to determine its own taxation policy. However, the solemn declaration on workers' rights does not go far enough and the general secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation has voiced his disappointment in this regard. I argue, however, that this declaration is a step forward and that in tandem with the Lisbon treaty and the Charter on Fundamental Rights, great importance is being placed right across Europe on furthering social issues, public services and the protection of workers' rights. It is a stepping stone that can be built on.

The failure to understand the Lisbon treaty was cited by 42% of Irish voters as the main reason they voted "No" last year, while 46% of those who did not vote stated that the main reason they stayed away from the polling booths was because they did not understand the treaty either. It is imperative that the Government get it right this time. The failure to communicate and explain the details of the Lisbon treaty was the Government's single biggest failure during the last campaign. As I stated earlier, it was highly frustrating for those of us who worked hard during the last campaign and who thought that everyone understood the treaty's content. Unfortunately, as the Millward Brown polling exercise revealed, the people did not. One must get the message right and to succeed in so doing this time, the treaty must be read, understood and above all else, be communicated properly.

We now live in an era of instant communication in which Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and many other social networking sites are used widely to communicate. The Obama presidential campaign showed how effective the use of the Internet and social media can be in modern communications. His campaign used the Internet and the social web in particular in a manner that had been unprecedented heretofore. Consequently, it was able to build on relationships with voters across the social web by using multiple social media channels. Voters engaged with the Obama campaign by, for instance, connecting with him through Facebook and then used their own Facebook pages to build support for the candidate. As issues will arise rapidly during the campaign on the Lisbon treaty in September, it is instructive to recall that an issue arose in respect of the authenticity of President Obama's birth certificate. Voters were able to check out the facts on the issue instantly and the response was distributed instantly, which could not have been done through traditional media outlets.

I urge the Government to take a leaf out of the Obama campaign experience for the purposes of the referendum, rather than for Fianna Fáil purposes.

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