David Cullinane (Sinn Fein)

This same Senator assured the House that Haggardstown is full of republicans. I am confident that Senator D'Arcy, as a republican, will vote for the presidential candidate who believes in the 32 counties of Ireland and not in the candidate who believes in the 22 counties, as his party's candidate does.

The Seanad has had a number of discussions on jobs in the last number of weeks. We had a very engaging discussion on innovation with the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Bruton. Last week, we debated a Private Members' Bill tabled by Labour Party Senators. Sinn Féin proposed an amendment to that Bill calling on the Government to make good a promise to legislate for collective bargaining and trade union recognition. The amendment was defeated. That promise was made during the course of the Lisbon treaty amendment campaign. When will it be made good?

During the course of the Lisbon treaty amendment campaign a number of political parties cynically used the issue of jobs to play on people's fears. Their mantra was that a vote for the Lisbon Treaty would create jobs. We now have the spectacle of senior Government Ministers using the presidential election campaign to create fear about jobs and citing a particular candidate, Martin McGuinness. They claim that a vote for Martin McGuinness would be a threat to foreign direct investment, when the same candidate has been to the forefront in lobbying for job creation and has been in more boardrooms than those same Ministers who talk about him.