Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I do not know how he sees Irish diplomacy working but I will tell him how I see it working. We will not trade the constitutional rights of the Irish people with anybody or for anything. The referendum we will have is one for the Irish people to decide whether they want to ratify the treaty concluded on 30 January.

Treaty or no treaty, we will continue the discussions we had already begun with the troika in regard to the re-engineering of the promissory notes which are very onerous on the Irish people and on the Irish taxpayer. We had already commenced work on that and work is taking place with the troika which we hope will produce a positive result for Ireland. We are not linking it to any treaty. We have been engaged in that for some time and we will continue with that engagement.

The treaty which we believe is required in order to ensure stability in the euro zone, so there will be investment in Europe and Ireland to create jobs, is something we will put to the people on its own merits. We have no intention of engaging in any kind of a trade-off of the constitutional rights of the Irish people to decide on that treaty in their own time and based on their own judgment with anybody or for anything.

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