Labhrás Ó Murchú (Fianna Fail)

During the second debate on the Nice treaty, I met people from eastern European countries who found it very difficult to understand how a country like Ireland, with its history and the challenges that confronted it over the centuries, would not welcome those countries into the family of nations. We are all familiar with the names of the applicant states often because they are associated with sad periods of history. Mention of Czechoslovakia or Poland was generally in the context of oppression. Many of those countries suffered the worst excesses of communism, but they still retained their sense of independence and a vision that one day they would have control of their own destinies.