Jimmy Harte (Labour)

I would like to add my comments to those of Senator O'Keeffe on the news that the Taoiseach and Tánaiste have conveyed to the Dáil that a referendum will take place - I presume it will be this year - on the fiscal compact. I hope that the debate will be reasoned and it will not be used by certain individuals for another agenda. It is probably the most important referendum in which this country will ever engage in my lifetime. It is a referendum for my children's future and for future generations. I would appeal to politicians on all sides, especially those who are stoking up rhetoric and emotion and will use it as an anti-Government referendum rather than a referendum for the future, not particularly of me but of my children and of this country. During the First World War, there was the expression, "For your tomorrow, I will give our today", and we must look at this referendum in that context.