Ann Ormonde (Fianna Fail)

Ours was a great Presidency which reflected very well on the country. As the Minister of State said, we are a small nation but we wear the green jersey very well. When the going gets tough, we get going.

We have a superb Civil Service, which reflects our educational system, as we saw with the superb brains behind the scenes that delivered on each programme stage by stage. Many contributors have mentioned the principle of subsidiarity, and I had to reflect for some time on that issue. Now I have grasped it, I do not want to see it in the arena again. It means that we take control of our own decision-making process in the areas of taxation, social and security policies. We can co-operate on the international scene when we want to fight crime but our military neutrality is protected. That is clear. When the debate starts I do not want that distorted or misrepresented, as began to occur at the forum last Thursday. Fortunately, the Minister for Foreign Affairs was present to challenge those doing so to a debate on facts. I welcome that debate, which we should start early in the autumn.

We have a good, readable and accessible EU constitution but we must now get it into the schools and the wider arena. This time, the media should give us a chance to disseminate the constitution to members of the public who still do not know what it is about. During the local elections campaign, the issue of the did not arise and was not on anybody's agenda.