Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

The issues will begin to be discussed tomorrow in the House here, following the normal report that I will give to the House following yesterday's meeting. I expect that Deputy Hannigan, the Chairman of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Union Affairs, will see that plenty of opportunity is given to Deputies from all sides of the House to have their say on the text as it is agreed in this intergovernmental treaty. I want the Deputy to understand that I have required every Minister and Minister of State to attend their meetings in Europe where appropriate as part of the ongoing work that is involved in this.

The Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Creighton, who has responsibility for European Union affairs, has undertaken an enormous range of meetings informing our colleagues and peers of the work of Government. At ministerial level, part of the work that occurs on a daily basis, concerns not just our programme for Government, but how this feeds into the European agenda. I am glad, as I am sure Deputy Martin is, that at long last, jobs, employment and incentives in the Single Market will become a central feature of all of the agendas for European Council meetings.

Deputy Martin spoke about consulting with the people. He can take it that very adequate information will be provided to everybody on what is contained in this. On the first Lisbon referendum, people felt they were not properly informed. Of course the issues then covered a broad spectrum, ranging from questions about abortion to battlegroups and to transfers of competency. I participated in a number of meetings with Deputy Martin then where we favoured a "Yes" on that referendum strongly. However, remember that in November 2010, when the Government of which Deputy Martin was a member made a decision at Cabinet in respect of handing over the economic sovereignty of our State, that was followed by a period of denial where Minister after Minister said that everything was rosy in the garden, there were green shoots, we had turned the corner and the IMF-----

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