John Dardis (Progressive Democrats)

Regarding the matter raised by Senator Brian Hayes, and the statements and comments made yesterday at the Forum for Europe, Senators Ormonde, Mansergh, Mooney, myself and some others were present at the Forum and heard the statement referred to. It was one of several tendentious and erroneous comments made about the constitutional treaty and the matter of the democratic deficit. It was dealt with very effectively by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Cowen, who described that and several other statements made as absurd. He repeated that on several occasions. While I agree with Senator Brian Hayes, I would not overestimate the importance of what was said by the Sinn Féin representative. The former Deputy Alan Dukes was there and he described the EU as the largest democracy in the world. In fact the Indian democracy is bigger but nevertheless an electorate of 450 million people electing members to a parliament can hardly be described as a democratic deficit.