Nicky McFadden (Fine Gael)

I also want to share in a debate on the economy, and the Leader should facilitate it as urgently as possible. There are two facets to this. Senator de Búrca referred to food production and food security, but I would go further and point out how prescriptive we have become. I met a man at a function to commemorate the golden jubilee of a wedding last weekend, and he spoke about not being able to rear a duck, kill a goose or kill a lamb without having them tagged. This is overly prescriptive and with the way our economy and the cost of food are going, it is something we should examine. People feel downtrodden and this is a reflection on the way they voted in the Lisbon treaty. They voted because they are fed up with being told what to do. This man told me that soon we will have to ask permission to go to the toilet.

Economists say that oil will cost $200 per barrel by Christmas, yet there is an idea out there that people in rural Ireland will not be able to cut turf. This is the other facet to the debate on the economy. If the Government had listened to the people of rural Ireland before the referendum on the Lisbon treaty, their fears could have been allayed that these issues were not part of the treaty in the first place.