James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----for the very simple reason that we do not want our peacekeepers and where we carry out peacekeeping missions to be vetoed by China, Russia or any other major power. The extraordinary proposal from the Social Democrat Deputy was that his role as a legislator would somehow be transposed into some makey-uppy vote of the general public unrelated to our Constitution. It is only when our Constitution has to be changed that we have a referendum. The Deputy wants to remove the powers of this Dáil and have some form of plebiscite. That is undemocratic.

See this speech in context