Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)

Of course we are, and that is what I am saying. I am trying to address my remarks to the people representing us out there. It is so important that they do the business and assert themselves, that they tell Sarkozy, Merkel and Van Rompuy that we have to be people of our own destination. We have passed treaty after treaty for Europe. We have been good boys. We failed with Lisbon so we did it twice. We must tell them that nothing else will be accepted from austerity and from the lessening of our powers and rights as equals in the 27 member states. It should not be two or three member states. That is my worry, that they are engineering the situation. We have come to such a desperate situation in trying to please and placate the markets and the ECB has been standing idly by while Rome burns. It stood idly by when the reckless lending went on by these countries as well that came into our banks here. When they did not have it themselves, they got it from European banks so they are 50% responsible.

We are in charge of our destiny and must try to bring it back, maintain it and defend the smaller states. When we entered the project in the 1970s, I was only in school and that was the dream and belief we had. We were a proud nation among the other nations, since extended to 27. We are not and we will end up not even getting the afters. I want the Minister of State and the Taoiseach and every Deputy to fight for our dignity, our rights and our democracy, to wear the green jersey with pride and to come home if necessary without signing any treaty. We have experience of what happened with the last treaty back in the troubled times and there are rumours afterwards about what happened.

We are not sending anyone out there to cod them. We are sending the Government out as our representatives of the people of Ireland to make sure we are not trampled on, that we are not walked over and that we on the periphery of Europe are not forgotten about with the Germans in the centre. They played on that in the Second World War so this is the third time around without a bullet. It is being done with pound notes and euro and whatever kind of a new dream currency of German extraction that they might peddle up. We are being sold pups and it is now time our dogs started to bark and make sure we bark loud enough and that we are heard and maintain our rightful position in Europe.

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