Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate and I thank Sinn Féin for tabling the motion. While I do not necessarily agree with the content of the motion, neither do I agree to a large extent with the amendment proposed by the Government. Notwithstanding that, I have always believed that if there are difficult issues that involve the people, especially when they are issues that will ultimately go before them in a referendum, it is important we in this House discuss the issues at every available opportunity and thrash it out among ourselves because it is only through debate in this House that media attention focuses on the various issues. Taken from whatever standpoint one so wishes, it generates debate and allows the people an insight into the different aspects of the treaty that will ultimately go before them in order that an informed decision will ultimately take place. This is why my party put so much stock into encouraging the Government from the outset to hold that referendum.

Sadly, the Government negotiated this treaty in the expectation that there would not be a requirement to refer it to the people, and that is why we are having this discussion. I cannot imagine that the Government would have allowed a clause to appear within the context of this treaty that closed us off from access to much needed funding in the event of there being a requirement for a second bailout, which some Ministers indicated as their strongly held view was that such would be the case.

Neither do I think, if the Government had expected to hold a referendum, would the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, have gone on the public airways and suggested - I am paraphrasing or to some extent putting words in his mouth, but it largely encompasses the context of what he said - that extraneous issues would form part of the debate and that the people would not be in a position to judge the important issues from the peripheral stuff. This is a fairly simple treaty and it is my view that the people will have a clear view on it. I believe, therefore, that the Government got caught entirely off-guard here.

It is beyond me how the Government could not have engaged with the Attorney General's office on an ongoing basis. It seems they were engaging with some legal advice, and comments made by various individuals in Europe have always indicated that the Irish position was to try to find a solution. If we go back on the various different iterations of the draft documents, we moved from a situation where there was talk about a constitutional requirement to a constitutional requirement being preferable. That was clearly done to facilitate the Government's desire to avoid taking this to the people, and that is why I think it has been done in an exceptionally hamfisted way.

Notwithstanding that, my party supports, as Deputy Michael McGrath stated strongly, the necessity to bring about a better level of management of our public accounts and to do so in association with our partners in Europe. I agree with my colleague, Deputy Kelleher when he spoke of the treaty not going far enough, particularly as it should relate to the ECB, and that it is only a stopgap measure. Until such time as the ECB gets its head around being the lender of last resort, until such time as it understands the necessity, as happens with the Federal Reserve within the United States, of transfers taking place between richer and poorer states, and until such time as there is a clear understanding of the Community approach to the management of debt through the issuance of eurobonds, there will not be an appropriate mechanism to deal with the ongoing crisis. I accept the markets are calm and there is, I suppose, no reason to see how they should change, based on the different matrices one would normally apply in this regard, but the fundamentals have not changed.

I have a question and it is a pity there is nobody from the Labour Party here to answer it. I was quite amazed as I listened to "Morning Ireland" to hear the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, say he strongly supports the candidacy of M. Francois Hollande, the leader of the Socialist Party in France, for the presidential election which will take place in April and May of this year. Interestingly, M. Hollande has stated that, in the event of he being elected president, he will renegotiate this treaty. Is it a case that M. Hollande has seen the way the Labour Party operated prior to the election, the way it succeeded in doing a few handbrake turns very soon afterwards, and has been looking to its catechism for his election, or is it that the fraternity of the Labour Party across Europe has something it has not told us about and that it has a grand plan to do something very different after the French election? It is merely a question I pose. It is not for the Minister of State, Deputy Creighton, because I appreciate she has always been a strong supporter of the European project. It will be interesting to see how the Labour Party will enlighten us on that statement. No better man than Deputy Rabbitte, I am sure at some later stage, to enlighten us on where he is coming from on that issue and the consequence for the State in the event of his friend being elected President of France.

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