Joe O'Toole (Independent)

I compliment Mr. Cox on an extraordinary tour de force which covered all the issues. I will address some broad principles on behalf of the people I represent, Irish workers. I wish to keep the debate focused. I ask Mr. Cox to address an issue which he omitted to mention, that is, the extraordinarily specious argument about how and when the veto can be used. There is a false view abroad concerning the exercise of the veto. Anybody who has ever sat around a table with people of different views knows that the one certain way of not making progress is to give someone a right of veto. Will he confirm that the only occasion of significance on which the veto was used in a way that affected Irish workers and employers was when Margaret Thatcher decided to use it to scupper moves towards a social Europe with the introduction of the Social Charter?