Seanad debates
Thursday, 6 November 2003
European Communities (Amendment) Bill 2003: Second Stage.
No doubt Ireland was their role model, having gone through the first referendum on the Treaty of Nice that clearly indicated things were not all right in Ireland and there was an unhappy feeling about whether membership of Europe was the way forward. The failure of the first referendum was not because we did not want enlargement. While we were very much in favour of enlargement, there were differences of opinion among the public. It is important that the accession countries are aware of these concerns and fears we had over losing our identity.
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