David Norris (Independent)

People have said the treaty is difficult to read and have been patronised for saying that. One learned commentator said it was like trying to read Finnegans Wake backwards in Latin. Even for a Joycean like myself I imagine that might pose some difficulties.

If we examine the statements of other senior politicians, Monsieur Valéry Giscard d'Estaing is on record as saying that the Lisbon treaty is a direct clone of the failed constitution "except for certain cosmetic changes making it easier to swallow".

When the constitution was voted down in France and the Netherlands the Commission Vice-President, Günter Verheugen, stated: "We must not give in to blackmail". When the citizens of Europe exercise their democratic right it is blackmail but when the megalocrats stuff something down the throats of 26 of the 27 countries that is democracy in action. I have a different way of using language.

On the question of language, I recall pointing out to the Minister of State's colleague, Deputy Mary Harney, that in a statement on health approximately three pages long she used the word "competition" seven times and she was embarrassed by that. Let us examine the language of the treaty. The word "market" gets 63 mentions and "competition" gets 25 mentions. There is no mention whatever of full employment. In other words, we are going to exchange social Europe for the neoliberal economic model of Europe.