Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein)

It would have been good if Senator Byrne had clarified whether his parliamentary party was in favour of the treaty or if Deputy Ó Cuív changed his mind.

There is increasing support for a "No" vote across Europe. Monsieur Hollande in France has serious problems with the treaty. If he wants the treaty to be written in the way he likes, there will be need for renegotiation. The Dutch Labour Party, French socialists and conservative Spanish Government, even though it has signed up to the treaty, have said they do not agree with it. The European trade union movement has also come out against the treaty.

We do not stand alone in our opposition to the treaty and will focus on the five reasons we are calling for a "No" vote. We do not believe the austerity treaty will solve the eurozone crisis or fix the Irish economy. It will deepen the recession and lead to greater levels of instability at home and across Europe. It will also lead to more austerity. Even though the Government parties might not like to admit it, the current situation under the troika is causing austerity. The new measures to be introduced under the fiscal treaty will continue that type of austerity into the future and will mean we will have to balance our budgets in a certain way, which will involve cuts to public services.

It will result in a loss of political sovereignty. The treaty significantly strengthens the capacity of the European Commission to enforce member state compliance with existing and new rules. Member states will have signed up to a legally binding obligation to automatically enter an economic partnership programme when they are in breach of the rules. It will also result in a loss of legal sovereignty. The treaty gives the European Court of Justice jurisdiction to determine whether member states are complying with debt and deficit rules.

The treaty also allows one member state to take another member state to the European Court of Justice if it believes the member state in question to be in breach of the rules. The treaty is binding and permanent. It restates some old rules and strengthens some new ones. By placing these rules in an international treaty and giving it the protection of the Irish Constitution they will be made binding and permanent. Due to time limits I will continue with those arguments on Committee Stage.

A lot has been said about multinationals investing in the country. There seems to be a contradiction in the argument. At one stage the Government focused on the investments made by Google, Facebook, etc. However, it is telling us if we do not sign up to the treaty these companies will automatically stop investing here. That seems to be the thrust of the argument, which we do not believe. The reality is that if we do not sign up to the treaty the status quo continues. We will not be thrown out of the EU.