Ulick Burke (Fine Gael)

I join in welcoming the President of the European Parliament to the House. Throughout his address, he strongly emphasised the term "ownership". One of the factors causing resistance towards Nice is that ordinary Irish people feel they are losing ownership of many of the institutions of Europe. Opinion polls taken in the early years of Ireland's membership in the 1970s always showed us as the best Europeans. However, as the membership of the EU expanded, there was a decrease in our level of satisfaction. From the 1990s onwards, the prospect of an additional ten countries joining has created concern on the part of Irish people that there are inadequate means of ensuring a satisfactory response from Europe to our concerns in relation to EU directives and regulations which impinge – in some cases very seriously – on our way of life as we have known it.

A mechanism must be put in place whereby we can respond where Europe has failed or made mistakes. Nobody can claim that Europe has not made mistakes which are quite apparent in Ireland. Support systems for increased production of agricultural and other products led to problems of surplus. Farmers who invested heavily in facilities to increase output are now being told those facilities are obsolete and that they will have to change direction again. In my view, much of the "No" lobby is related to the negative perception which many people have towards Europe, arising from that experience.