Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)

Senator Fitzgerald aptly and correctly put the Lisbon treaty on the agenda today and sought a response from the Leader. I consider it of significant national importance that we pass the Lisbon treaty. It goes without contradiction that our membership of the European Union has had enormous social and economic implications for this country.

I wish to raise with the Leader one issue that is a backdrop to the Lisbon treaty, that overshadows it and puts it at risk but, more importantly, puts the country's entire interests at risk. I refer to the Mandelson negotiations on a world trade agreement that are in progress. They are of critical importance for this country's agriculture industry and related employment sectors. In excess of €1 billion has been spent in this country, and rightly so, on farm waste management grant schemes. It is good to see it but that expenditure will be the greatest waste of public money in the history of the State — a white elephant — if the Mandelson proposals are accepted. The implications of the Mandelson proposals would result in the complete closure of Irish agriculture and would render wasteful the expenditure on these grants. That is critical.

I ask the Leader to convey to the Government the need for a major national diplomatic offensive on a scale never seen previously against the Mandelson talks to protect Irish agriculture. I acknowledge and welcome the participation of the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in the European Council talks last week and her stance there but we need involvement at all levels of Government, including the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste, in a diplomatic offensive on the EU stage from capital to capital and from Commission to Council to get a change in our position on the talks.

We need to do this for two reasons. One is to show to the public that we are standing up to this development because if the public do not perceive that, the Lisbon treaty will not pass. We also need to do it in the hope that we will have a level of success because Irish interests are at risk. It is a little like Nero fiddling while Rome burns. We could be fiddling around with other issues and miss the main point, namely, that this is the greatest threat to our country we have faced for many a day and we need to do something about it urgently.