Joe O'Toole (Independent)

Perhaps I should not have said that, but it is now on the record. I compliment the Minister of State, Deputy Roche, on his elevation and wish him well in his difficult task. The forthcoming referendum is an historic moment with which we will have to deal. The contributions of the Minister of State and Senators Bradford and Mansergh have been a tour de force. I wish to concentrate on one aspect of the referendum rather than try to cover everything because the debate is so broad. One of the reasons we lost the vote on the last occasion was that people were confused. I wish, therefore, to deal with one perspective of the Nice treaty, that is, the point of view of workers and trade unions. In a direct comparison, more voters voted against the Maastricht treaty than the Nice treaty. This reflects a very low turn out, which should be dealt with in the future. I have many ideas about electronic voting and have checked it out elsewhere.

The question of the veto, which has been raised time and time again, is specious. It is impossible to make progress in any negotiation, at any level, in any country, nationally or internationally, where someone can sit on the high stool, arms folded, and say no to everything. If we have not learnt that in the last 30 years then we have learnt nothing. I oppose this type of behaviour. People must make progress by engaging with and understanding each other. They must give and take to move forward. As President of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, I believe that representatives of workers, leaders of trade unions and the political left have a clear responsibility to point out to workers where we are headed.

We are at a juncture in European and world history which will not go away. Senator Mansergh referred to the move to the right in Europe. We have all been concerned about that over the last two years. It is very heartening and encouraging to see the possibility, which emerged during the last week, that Austria will move more towards social democracy. The social democrats have also peaked for the first time in the German election campaign and are ahead of the other parties. There may be an understanding of the importance of not allowing Europe to move to the right. Those of us on the Irish left should be saying this clearly.