Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein)

I am sharing time with Deputy Tóibín. If he is watching proceedings on the monitor in his office, I urge him to come to the Chamber tout de suite.

It is important to state at the outset that Ireland is a member of the European Union. More than that, Ireland is an ancient European nation, and we must be very clear in debating this treaty - like any other - and not go off on some tangent and imagine we are having some kind of existentialist crisis about who or what we are. We are Europeans and part of this project called the European Union. As a small nation we should be a dynamic and positive in the development of that political project.

It is important to say that those of us who have been critical of EU institutions, policy and treaties are not, therefore, anti-European. We have a strongly held view of what this European project must be, how it should be governed and the policy direction it must take if it is to deliver fully for citizens and what could truly be described as a project based on the fundamentals of democracy and the rule of law. I welcome that there will be a referendum on this treaty and as Government Members know, we argued very strongly for it. We did so because we believe the citizen ultimately has the fundamental right and responsibility to oversee any significant changes to the Constitution and any major shifts in respect of public policy. Our people value the right to scrutinise, consider, accept or reject propositions in respect of the governance of the EU and Ireland's place within it.

I am very disappointed that the referendum will be held on a Thursday. If I recall correctly, Members now in government railed very correctly against holding referendums on a Thursday for the simple reason that it caused a difficulty for students in particular who may wish to return home to cast a vote. I register this with a note of disappointment. It is clear that the initial intention was for the treaty to be ratified without a referendum. In February, the German Minister for European Affairs, Mr. Michael Link, let the cat out of the bag when he said that European Union negotiators were seeking to design the treaty in a way that it could get past the Attorney General and not necessitate a referendum vote. It was clear that the Labour Party and Fine Gael were working hand in glove with those negotiators to try to meet that objective but I am thankful they failed, and the Attorney General's advice was correct. A referendum would not just be democratically desirable and necessary but it would also be a legal requirement.

The people must have their say and the decision must be respected. It is necessary to say at this juncture that the re-running of referendums on the basis of voters arriving at what would was deemed the "wrong" decision by the political establishment has been a shameful attack on democratic values in the State. The attack was often spearheaded by Fianna Fáil with the full connivance and support of Fine Gael and the Labour Party. We need a commitment at this juncture that there will not be a repeat performance of that. When the people have their say in accepting or rejecting this proposition, all of us, as democrats, are duty bound to accept it.

I note that Fianna Fáil has called for comh-oibriú and extolled the merits of what Deputy Ó Fearghaíl called "pro-European" parties working together in respect of this treaty. He made this statement as if it were a novel advance but it is a matter of public record that Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Labour Party have always spoken with one voice not just with EU treaty changes but on the thrust, direction and dynamic of European policy. There is nothing new in that. We need an honest and robust debate and there is no room for scare tactics, auction politics or empty promises of jobs for all. We all recall the campaign for the Lisbon treaty when the slogan was "Yes for Jobs"; that has been thoroughly discredited and I hope it will not be run again in the course of this campaign.

If we take this treaty on its merits and separate it from other strands of European policy and our respective positions on them, the problem is that it is essentially a misdiagnosis of the dilemma we face. It is just wrong to say that this State is in an economic catastrophe because of runaway public spending. We are in our current dire circumstances because private banking debt became public debt.

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