Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

There is grandstanding going on. While many of the amendments are not relevant to the treaty, there will be a problem weeding them out. I recently compared them to a black box – a lot of stuff going in but a lesser amount coming out. One wonders what will happen to the rest.

I agree with Senator Mansergh in regard to a union of states and peoples. In fact, he picked up a very interesting phrase. On three occasions when the first 16 articles were introduced, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing made the point that this was the nature of the Union. The Union is not a federation or an intergovernmental body but something different which operates on communitaire principles. That is the point that needs to be made. We need to establish a definition which more accurately describes the European Union. I said yesterday at the Oireachtas Joint Committee that we had been bedevilled with an arid debate on the basis of titles which had no relevance to this body. The Senator's question touched on the protocol relating to our position, particularly the issue of neutrality which will be continued in that the protocols will be carried over.