Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I welcome all our MEPs to the House. This debate is a manifestation of one of the most worthwhile aspects of Seanad reform on which I would like to compliment both the Leader and her colleagues.

I wish to consider the constitutional treaty from a republican perspective. A united Ireland, like a united Germany, will only happen in a united Europe. A former French socialist Foreign Minister stated in Dublin recently that the treaty was a constitutional treaty between sovereign states, not a constitution for a federal state. Our membership of the European Union fulfils many of the dreams and aspirations of Irish Nationalists over four centuries.

It was in 1627 that Owen Roe O'Neill made a proposal for an Irish Republic under Spanish protection. Last week in the House we remembered the 260th anniversary of the battle of Fontenoy. I will quote the verses to which the Leader of the House referred:

And Fontenoy, famed Fontenoy, had been a Waterloo, were not these exiles ready then, fresh, vehement and true.

Thomas Davis a century later said:

Foreign alliances have ever stood among the pillars of national power. Again it is particularly needful for Ireland to have a foreign policy intimacy with the great powers who will guard us from English interference.

The leaders of the 1916 Rising needed for morale purposes to refer to gallant allies in Europe. The difference today is we live in a peaceful era and not a warlike one. We are able to have both a close British-Irish partnership and an equally important partnership with many European countries. This is a form of synthesis of history.

The EU has enabled this Republic to flourish, to grow from having an income of less than two thirds of the EU average to the average and it is still on an upward trajectory. Full membership of the EU has enabled a relationship of better equality. It has helped us to vindicate the republican project in this part of Ireland, which has to be the basis of the republican project in any other part of Ireland. It pains me to hear any republican voice mouthing the mantras of Mrs. Thatcher at Bruges about a European superstate.

Elementary Marxism will state that politics is based on economics. A superstate based on an income scarcely more than 1% of GDP is a complete absurdity. I am also surprised to see outside the House a former leading light of the Connolly Association who is now writing Eurosceptic documents for President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic, who is the leading disciple of Mrs. Thatcher in central Europe.

There is talk of a European Foreign Minister but he or she will not have power on his or her own but only with the mandate of the member states. I see very little likelihood of a full-blown European defence in substitution of NATO. I do not think we either need or want to abandon our neutral traditions which are not incompatible with collective security under UN auspices on a regional basis. Who are we defending Europe against? One might say, terrorists, but if that is the case, the solidarity clause is already provided for in this treaty.

The EU is neither the ultra-liberal, Anglo-Saxon caricature nor the ultra-socialist one that is sometimes depicted for Britain. I was interested to read in today's newspapers of a eurozone being established in west Belfast. How that squares with the opposition of Sinn Féin to Ireland joining the euro I am not sure but it is a very welcome development. The one thing that is of interest to the Northern business community — which is made up of both traditions — is our greater ease and integration into Europe. The last thing we want is to align ourselves with a sort of Michael Howard party type policy on Europe.

What is the advantage and attraction of such a policy if we are trying to persuade people of the greater attractions of a united Ireland? Opposition to a united Europe as represented in this constitution is damaging to the prospects of a united Ireland. A leading Sinn Féin person who is very well known, admitted to me recently that Sinn Féin policy on Europe had not been updated for 30 years. I appeal to Sinn Féin to rethink its opposition on the European project. We must realise that we must fight battles in Europe from within and not from without.

All over central and eastern Europe can be seen the dynamic impact of the European project in widening democracy, human rights, peace and stability. I look forward to when de Gaulle's vision of a Europe stretching from the Atlantic to the Urals is realised.