Seanad report: Minister for Environment, Heritage and Local Government Dick Roche attacked Sinn Féin over its stance on the proposed European constitution, accusing it of showing a breathless disregard for truth, and logic that would have made Dr Goebbels blush.
The Minister was opening a special session for statements on the constitution which heard contributions from most of the Irish members of the European Parliament. The sitting marked the first occasion on which an elected Sinn Féin member addressed the House.
Mr Roche said the Government intended to publish soon the Bill to amend the Constitution to enable ratification of the European document. The myth that endorsement of the constitutional treaty would in some way remove the right of the Irish people to vote on future major treaty change was an untruth.
He was mentioning this because a party represented in the chamber had been peddling the opposite view. The Government would be prepared to amend the Bill to avoid unnecessary controversy over this point.
It was absolutely untrue to say that the constitution created some kind of federal Super-state. The list of the powers the EU would have was basically the same as those in the current treaties under which Ireland had thrived.
Pointing out that the EU's total budget remained at approximately 1 per cent of gross national income, he said that anyone who believed that it would be possible to create a super-state on that basis was not remotely connected with reality.
Mr Roche said that Sinn Féin MEP Mary Lou McDonald was deluded in her claim that the convention which had drawn up the constitution draft, was a sham.
Publication of the Bill would allow him to make an order establishing the referendum commission. The Government was determined that this body would have the time and resources it needed, as had been done for the second referendum on the Nice Treaty.
"There is a banner headline that another Europe is possible, something very often glibly and fatuously put forward. I suggest that is misleading. If this constitutional treaty fails, there is simply no prospect that a substantially different document can be negotiated. Instead, the union will be cast into a period of divisiveness and uncertainty, in no-one's interest.
"It would have to continue to operate on the basis of existing treaties which, while serviceable, are clearly inferior to this."
Mary Lou McDonald (SF) said she believed that another Europe was possible. However, she felt that there was a desire among large sections of the political elite to establish de facto a federal Europe. She had to express a counter view because she did not believe that such a Europe would be in the best interest of Ireland or of people in other jurisdictions. Sinn Féin had launched a No campaign for reasons around democracy, demilitarisation of the EU and matters of economic policy.