Ann Ormonde (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Michael Ahern, who has replaced the Minister of State, Deputy Roche, at this debate. I preface my contribution by congratulating Deputy Roche, and other members of the delegation, who worked for us at the Convention over the past 16 months.

The purpose of the Convention was to reflect what happened at Nice one, and particularly at Nice two, to see how best we could simplify the new draft constitutional treaty to make it clear and comprehensible and to address that disconnection between the citizen and the European Union. The Convention has done just that. It has brought all the treaties together and compiled one new draft constitutional framework, which will reflect the problems and the concerns out there regarding the future of Europe. I congratulate the Minister of State and his team on their work over the past months in bringing this together and compiling the work of the working groups into one final report.

The areas highlighted were those which reflected subsidiarity, the Charter of Fundamental Rights, making the treaty more simple and the role of the national parliaments. These were the key areas which were discussed at length and I am glad that we have finalised many of these issues.