Paschal Donohoe (Fine Gael)

I agree with everything Senator O'Malley said but two points in particular are worth emphasising. The first is how virtually every issue that will be discussed in the Irish political world over the next number of months will be related back to the Lisbon treaty by some in our country. Today I heard the Vintners' Federation of Ireland has come out and said a proposal on the blood alcohol limit could influence the referendum and deliver a "No" vote. This morning a colleague of ours stood and talked about how a very important change taking place on farmers' payments could influence a "No" vote.

We have a responsibility as politicians in the contributions we make to be at pains to point out to people that if they feel strongly about what this Government is doing, there will be a general election to express their views against it. The Lisbon treaty referendum is not the place to do it; it stretches far beyond that.

The second point the Senator made that I agree with concerned the traditional issues, or socially sensitive issues as Senator Mullen would say, and assessing their role in why people voted "No" on the treaty. I accept they played a role in influencing how people voted. However, I believe they have been put into their place by the broader issues now facing the country and our future destiny. That was brought home to me by how I felt last June when the decision came through. I remember sitting in my front room watching on television the result being announced at Dublin Castle. As I said previously in this House, the physical geography and the starkness of where we are as a small island on the edge of Europe came home to me politically. We were on our own that day. We were shown for what we are geographically - a small country on the edge of Europe. On that day I had a strong feeling of being alone on the edge.

With the guarantees to be put to the people in the forthcoming referendum, Europe has reached out again and indicated it wants small open countries like Ireland to continue to play a role in the future of Europe. This was brought home to me by an experience I had after my colleagues and I published the report of the Sub-Committee on Ireland's Future in the European Union. I was invited to a private meeting of Christian Democratic foreign Ministers held before a European Council. Our report had been published and they wanted to quiz a politician, who was not in government, regarding what was happening in Ireland and how Ireland was going to move forward in regard to Europe. The one emotion that came through from all of them was utter exhaustion. They were exhausted by the entire process that got them to the Lisbon treaty. Their capacity for working on this any further was spent - it was gone. The night on which we were having this meeting the foreign Minister of Greece asked me many questions regarding what was happening. She was very forceful in the different points she made. When I returned from that meeting I turned on the television to discover riots were breaking out in her country because of how young Greeks were feeling about what was happening to their economy. Every European country is now managing the kind of challenge she was managing then with differing degrees of intensity.

One point needs to be made to those who will campaign for a "No" vote. Senator Doherty has made clear what he will do. I will be interested to see what Senator Mullen will do. If they are saying the Lisbon treaty is wrong with these guarantees, what do they propose in its place? Do the "No" campaigners honestly believe that we have the ability to go back to all the other countries in Europe with the gigantic problems each of them is facing and get a better deal? Does anybody really believe that at this stage the political capital or will exists in any European country to reopen the treaty and get a better deal? Anybody living through what we are at the moment will know that it is just not the case - it will not happen.

It is worth emphasising a number of points about where we stand with the treaty. I encourage everybody to read the guarantees because the one quality they have, which the Lisbon treaty itself does not have, is that they are completely legible; they are written in plain English. When I opened the White Paper to prepare for the debate, I thought I was reading the wrong chapter when I was reading the guarantees. They are clarifications - my God they really are clarifications - in language people can understand and we should ensure we draw people to them.

People who talk about a better deal often point to Denmark. The irony is that when the result of the first referendum on the Lisbon treaty was announced last June, the Government of Denmark was about to embark on its own process to undo most of the opt-outs it had secured. It was about to introduce legislation and embark on consultation with the Danish people to undo the opt-outs that those on the "No" side in Ireland praise. The Danish representatives, who appeared before the Sub-Committee on Ireland's Future in the European Union, were at pains to say that the situation in which they found themselves made it exceptionally difficult to progress their national interest with other European countries.

Regarding the question of whether the Lisbon treaty has changed, of course it has not changed. As Senator O'Toole rightly said, that would make nonsense of what we said in June 2008. We need to be careful with that argument because, while the treaty has not changed, the operation of it has changed significantly as Ireland will have a Commissioner. In the balance to be found between efficiency on the one hand and democracy on the other, the absence of a Commissioner, if not representing Ireland then with an awareness of Ireland, went too far down the efficiency end of the scale and away from the democracy end. Guaranteeing having a Commissioner is a significant change from where we were. Those of us who acknowledge that the Lisbon treaty has not changed should not lose sight of how important it is to have a Commissioner in place.

I listened with great interest to what Senator Doherty said about taxation. He pointed out that the Lisbon treaty does not affect our tax sovereignty. He then said that any decision taken in that regard would be a decision taken by the Council of Ministers. Does anyone honestly believe that any Irish Minister from any political party, including Senator Doherty's, would go into a Council of Ministers and hand over a decision on our corporation tax? It just would not happen. It is inconceivable that anybody who will ever represent us at any Council of Ministers would make such a statement and hand over our sovereignty on corporation tax and other taxation matters.

There is much in the report of the Sub-Committee on Ireland's Future in the European Union published a number of months ago that should be followed up on by all Members of the Oireachtas during the referendum campaign. The Minister for Foreign Affairs has responded acknowledging that there are some really clear recommendations on how the role of the Oireachtas could be improved. The work we do regarding Europe could be simplified and made clearer to the people we are serving. We are kidding ourselves by saying there is a communications deficit regarding Europe; there is more than that, there is a result deficit. There is an absence of things happening from Europe with the clarity they need, given all that is going on. The Oireachtas could play a far stronger role in doing it.

In 1962 when Ireland made its first attempt to join the European Economic Community, Liam Cosgrave, who went on to become leader of my party, in giving a speech on our potential accession, said: "If Ireland and other countries become members of the European Economic Community, the best prospects, indeed, possibly, the only guarantee of political and economic stability lies in the idea enshrined in the Treaty of Rome." There is a time in our recent history when we would have looked down on economic and political stability and said that is a bit below us because we have so much more. Given where we stand now, we really appreciate the value and security it has to offer. That is why we all have such a vital role to play in participating forcefully in the approaching referendum campaign.