David Cullinane (Sinn Fein)

I agree with the Senators on the Government side and those in the Opposition who support the treaty that it is important to have an honest and factual debate on what is contained in it because all kinds of issues will be brought into the campaign. It is an EU fiscal compact treaty which puts into law a number of old and new rules aimed at fiscal discipline. Article 3 deals with those in respect of the debt level of 60% of GDP and the structural deficit target of 0.5%. This is a new rule and, as a previous speaker said, it is an ill-defined concept on which many economists differ. The EU has not stated how it will measure a structural deficit. However, it is one of the measures in the treaty. There is also the Stability and Growth Pact deficit target of 3%. Therefore, the treaty contains rules in place as well as new rules. Those rules will be put into Irish law and put on a constitutional footing. The combined impact of the rules, which are draconian and tie the hands of this and future governments for generations, being put in place is that we are giving powers to the European Commission and the European Court of Justice and putting in place sanctions whereby if countries stray outside the terms of the rules, they can be brought to court and have financial penalties imposed.

Sometimes governments have surpluses, sometimes they have deficits and sometimes books can be balanced. The reasons there are deficits is that governments need to borrow to invest. The treaty puts a straitjacket on the ability of future governments to borrow to invest.