Ned O'Keeffe (Cork East, Fianna Fail)

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I canvassed very strongly in the last referendum campaign and to my disappointment, we were not successful. There was not enough hard work done in that campaign by political and interested parties on the island. Be that as it may, I congratulate the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Micheál Martin, on promoting this second referendum on the Lisbon treaty. He did a great job in getting the guarantees in Europe and I wish him well in the campaign, which I hope will be successful. It will not be any easy sell to the people.

The Minister has presented a very fine White Paper on the treaty but is any work being done in schools to educate our kids at all levels - including primary and post-primary levels - on the issue? They will speak to their parents and educate them on the importance of Europe from an Irish context.

We have gone through a very difficult period on this island in the past few months in the financial area. If we had been more generous in our support of the Lisbon treaty, we may have received much more support from Europe. If it were not for the European Central Bank, we would be in great difficulty in the country. Mr. Jean-Claude Trichet has been very helpful to Ireland in making funding available to help the economy and get us over this difficult period in our financial and economic history.

We are part of the bigger picture in the European Union. I read in a magazine this evening that 4 million people work in the agriculture industry in Germany, which is a significant number equivalent to the current Irish population. The Common Agricultural Policy is very important for Ireland but we have seen a great watering down of it in the past number of years. We have seen the effect of the health check on rural life in Ireland and I would sound a warning on the difficulties in agriculture.

The farming and commercial sectors were the mainstay of Europe in 1973 and 1974 and they put us into the Union. The campaign was fought by Jack Lynch, Paddy Hillery and others, and it was a great boost and success for Ireland. Many of the peripheral parties, including that on my left, were opposed to it at the time. There will always be peripheral parties to oppose the good economic decisions. We are a peripheral nation surrounded by water. There is a high cost to get goods from this country to mainland Europe.

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