The European Union has provided us with a supportive framework which has levelled the playing field and enabled us to flourish. Much of this is acknowledged even by opponents of the treaty. However, they want the European Union to stand still and to evolve no further in political and institutional terms. They want Ireland to move from the fast lane to the crawler's lane and to stop all the traffic in the process. In reality, they will find a way around the obstruction and we will be left to catch up as best we can. It is like King Canute being told that he can hold back the tide. Have they not read the words on the Parnell monument which say that no man has the right to fix the boundary to the march of a nation? Equally, we do not have the right to fix the ne plus ultra to the progress of the European continent. We have the right to shape that progress, not to block it.