Ann Ormonde (Fianna Fail)

I move:

That Seanad Éireann:

Commends the members of the Government on the hugely successful EU Presidency and thanks them for all their efforts which have ensured that the reputation of the country has been greatly enhanced world-wide;

commends the Taoiseach, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Cowen, the Minister of State, Deputy Roche, and the team of public servants who ensured that agreement was found on a new EU constitution;

urges the Members of the House to become familiar with the text of the new EU constitution which sets out clearly for citizens the very nature of the European Union, its powers, the limits of those powers, its values and its objectives as a single text incorporating all previous EU treaties will help to make the work of the EU more understandable to all of our citizens;

welcomes the new EU constitution for the manner in which Ireland's concerns in certain areas have been addressed including areas such as preserving total unanimity on tax, maintaining safeguards for our national criminal justice system, ensuring our traditional policy of military neutrality and maintaining the institutional balance in the EU including total equality in the Commission;

calls on the Government to increase its efforts to explain the workings of Europe and, in particular, the new constitution to citizens as Europe has a hugely positive influence in our daily lives;

urges that all Members of each House become engaged in debate in the coming months and years; praises the work of the Government in reinvigorating the Lisbon Agenda to make Europe the most knowledge-based economy in the world and urges the Government to use every opportunity to keep the Lisbon Agenda at the top of the European agenda;

and welcomes the nomination by the European Council of José Manuel Durão Barroso with whom we look forward to working as Commission President if he secures the backing of the European Parliament.

I welcome the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Deputy Roche, to the House. Even though I have expressed many congratulations over the last number of months, I am pleased to reiterate and reinforce my feelings on the success of the Taoiseach, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Cowen, and the Minister of State, Deputy Roche, and all those senior civil servants who worked to make the Presidency such a triumph.

The programme of the Presidency was ambitious. The Minister of State, Deputy Roche, the Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy Cowen, came to this Chamber on many occasions to highlight the key areas of focus. It was challenging to hear from the Taoiseach how he proposed to implement the programme, which has been such a success. The highlights of it were the enlargement of the Union, the drawing up and securing final agreement on the draft EU constitution and the appointment of the President of the EU Commission, José Manuel Durão Barroso.

The day marking the enlargement of the Union from 15 members to 25 members was a marvellous one. I congratulate the Taoiseach and all concerned on making it such a great success in terms of the events that took place throughout Ireland and the security in place to ensure they ran smoothly. It was a beautiful day for Ireland to be on the European and international stage.

The agreement on the draft constitution is fair. I have only read the parts of it that were distributed last week by the National Forum on Europe. It incorporates the existing treaties and allows Ireland great flexibility in terms of sovereignty in regard to tax matters and our criminal justice system. At the same time it sets out how to tackle crime on an international front without posing any threat to our traditional military neutrality.

The draft constitution sets out clearly for our citizens what it is all about, its powers and their limits, its values and objectives. The Taoiseach had in mind the definite goal that, regardless of the manner in which the treaty would be shaped, it would be understandable and readable and not have attached to it the European lingo that was attached to previous treaties. Success has been achieved in that area.

On the international front, agreement on the draft constitution was successful in reinforcing relationships with partners and in dealing with other areas in which there are zones of conflict. In this regard, the Taoiseach did his best in his tours around Europe and elsewhere to reinforce relationships with the United Nations.

The real debate will have to commence as to how we can fight crime, promote trade, create jobs, protect our environment and promote a peaceful world. We have to engage with our citizens to bring them up to date on every aspect of the proposed treaty. The message in this respect will have to be imparted to people in all walks of life. I acknowledge the contributions of the Minister of State, Deputy Roche, and other members of the Irish delegation who made themselves available over the past six months and who on many occasions attended this Chamber and meetings of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on European Affairs and the National Forum on Europe under the chairmanship of Senator Maurice Hayes. I call on the Minister of State and his team to engage again with our citizens in getting across the message about what this draft constitution is about and to encourage them to engage in debate about aspects of it that will affect their lives.

Now that Ireland is at the heart of Europe, the key areas of focus will be on economic growth and employment creation. Over the past six months the Minister of State highlighted the commitment to advance the Lisbon Agenda and to speed up reforms in areas of economic and environmental protection in regard to employment, education, training and up-skilling. More co-ordination across Departments and greater collaboration with the European institutions is required. In this regard I hope our colleagues in the Netherlands will continue from where the Taoiseach and his team finished.

We secured agreements on several fronts in regard to directives on a financial plan, infrastructure and employment and social inclusion. I was particularly interested in the spring European Council in terms of strategies put forward to eradicate poverty and tackle social exclusion.

The Single Market is at the core of the development of the Union. It will facilitate the movement of people, services and goods. It is central to how we can create employment in member states and to how access to social security entitlements by non-nationals will be made easy.

Considerable work and debate will be involved in regard to the draft constitution. Debate on it will reflect the pulse of the nation for the next few months until we decide when it must be ratified. People want freedom of movement, to acknowledge that they are Europeans but at the same time to retain their identify. This Chamber should be the main venue to deal with these matters while discussions at the Forum on Europe should help open up the debate.

I call on the media to give the Seanad the opportunity to air the debate and to get the message across to the public. The media has a major responsibility to make it easy for the public to understand the issues in the debate and to ensure that we are not cast in the light in which we were in previous debates when members of the public did not understand the issues and blamed public representatives for the downfall of the first Nice referendum.

We have learned major lessons and have had great success over the past six months. The role played by the Taoiseach has been universally acknowledged by all the leaders of the EU member states. The success he achieved and his gift in knowing how to debate and to bring people together, as he brought his team together, won acclaim for Ireland, not only throughout the EU but elsewhere internationally.

We have finally put Ireland on the international map. We are the model country. Ours is a major success story. People will acknowledge this when they understand what this debate is about, how we have achieved such success, benefited greatly from our membership of the Union and how we will maintain our identity in terms of our culture and retain sovereignty over areas such as tax matters and so on.

We have a major responsibility ahead of us but this debate presents us with the opportunity to again congratulate the Minister of State, the Taoiseach, the Minister, Deputy Cowen, and all the senior civil servants concerned who spared no effort during the past months to make Ireland a successful model in terms of our economy and our people. They showed that, even though ours is a small country, we have the strength to survive and to take on challenges in the wider world.

I am delighted the Minister of State was able to come to the Chamber this evening and I thank him again for his work. I ask him to convey to the Taoiseach and the others involved that we were impressed and confident that they would bring us back such a success story. Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.