Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein)

My party leader has just held up a synopsis of the package that will go before the European leaders, but it is quite incredible that we must obtain these reports through newspaper leaks. That is what our Parliament has been reduced to. Some of the most critically important decisions which impact on our State, including the further transfer of economic sovereignty to others who are not accountable to our people, must be accessed through newspaper leaks. That is what is happening here today and it is what we have been reduced to. We are seeing an attempt to bypass democracy and deny the Irish people a say in this matter. On two occasions the Irish people have rejected propositions put to them in referenda, which were endorsed by Fine Gael, Labour, Fianna Fáil and a plethora of their friends in business and civil society. The people rejected them but were not allowed to say "No", so the propositions were put before them again. The most recent episode was the Lisbon treaty, when the people were promised jobs and prosperity. They were promised the sun, moon and stars if they would only change their minds.

One of the issues that Sinn Féin warned about was article 26 with the passarelle or escalator clause, which would allow governments in future to amend treaties without recourse of the Irish people. They could then make profound decisions without having to come back to the people. Sinn Féin warned about that but we were told that we were scare-mongers. We now know that Mr. Van Rompuy is putting that exact proposition to our leaders in the coming days. Will they bypass the will of the Irish people? Will our Government transfer more of our economic sovereignty to those who have failed us?

Let us be very clear about this matter. In the late 1990s, the Irish economy was moving in the right direction. We could see the beginnings of what would have been a genuine Celtic tiger. Investment in education was starting to provide a return, exports were growing and it was an exciting time. We then entered the eurozone and our banks were fed with a river of credit from other European banking institutions. Twinned with a dramatic reduction in interest rates, it was like crack cocaine. It created a massive bubble in our economy whereby people could access credit without an difficulty and the housing sector was exploding. This pressed up wage demands creating all sorts of crazy difficulties and we ended up with a perfect storm.

There is a collective responsibility at European level for what went wrong in private banking institutions in Ireland. We have been asked to shoulder that burden. Seven times in a row there have been fiscal adjustments that delivered unbelievable hardship to our people. What will the Government do? It will reward the very people who created this mess, giving them even more powers without recourse to the Irish people. If the Taoiseach comes back this weekend having agreed to an amendment of the Lisbon treaty that concedes more of our economic sovereignty, then shame on him and his Ministers. If they betray the Irish people this weekend, then shame on them if they stand on the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Rising outside the GPO and claim to be the inheritors of that tradition.

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