Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

I have read it several times and moreover, I have it to hand. The cheap shots should be avoided, as the Tánaiste and I simply have different takes on it. There is no such mechanism and one should be clear that the paranoia, as the Government may perceive it, of Members on this side of the House has considerable evidence to back it up. I refer to the comments of Chancellor Merkel at the end of the negotiations, when she stated "the debt brakes will be binding and valid forever. Never will you be able to change them through a parliamentary majority." It could not be clearer.

The treaty will do away with democracy in the context of fiscal and economic policy. I would have thought that it will continue the process of eroding democracy. At least with previous treaties - including Lisbon - we still had open to us, through the framework of the European Union, avenues to challenge that erosion. This is not the case with the fiscal treaty. Consequently, the heavyweight wording to which Deputy Catherine Murphy referred is cause for a good deal of concern.

I accept that we may disagree on what might be the implications of the treaty. In the context of the correction mechanism, for example, the phrase "on the basis of common principles to be proposed by the European Commission, concerning in particular the nature, size and time-frame of the corrective action to be undertaken" is included in the treaty. These are very significant powers and if the correction mechanism is triggered, the Commission will be able to dictate the nature, size and timeframe of cutbacks, structural reforms to the economy or whatever. What will happen if these conflict with imperatives within the Constitution? I refer, for example, to imperatives which declare that the natural resources of the State must remain the property of the people. What will happen if the Commission decides that one of the structural reforms required in this country will be the privatisation of our national resources? Under the treaties pertaining to the European Union, there would at least be mechanisms through which we could politically challenge such a decision. However, what is before us is an intergovernmental treaty which simply relates to imposing fiscal rules and giving powers to the Commission to dictate courses of action in certain circumstances. There is no democratic mechanism within the treaty which would allow us to challenge any decisions that might affect us. The key point is that the will of the Commission will just be imposed.

As Deputy Catherine Murphy stated, we are against the treaty. In so far as the treaty's ratification is concerned, however, we are of the view that if it conflicts with imperatives in the Constitution, then we should have the ability to challenge its implementation.

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