As I mentioned earlier, we have a lack of confidence in our capacity to play a role in Europe. This is completely unwarranted considering what we did in October and the level of debate. When it comes to European affairs we have, if not an unparallelled grasp, a grasp which is unusual in European states. A Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs in one of the incoming states told me that during the course of the referendum campaign he arrived in Dublin and was travelling by taxi with a voluble driver who was talking about the Nice treaty. The minister asked the taxi driver how the referendum would go and the driver said, stroking his chin, that he was not terribly certain. He then confounded his passenger by launching into a long, learned diatribe on enhanced co-operation and qualified majority voting. The minister told me that if the degree of expertise of the taxi driver existed in some ministries abroad, he would be quite happy.