The President, Mrs McAleese, has urged Irish people to go out and vote on the Nice Treaty.
Mrs McAleese said being able to vote was one of the greatest human rights we have. "Around the world a lot of people don't have that right and I just hope people use it," she said.
While she was careful not to express her own view on how people should vote in the referendum, Mrs McAleese was clear in her desire that "those of us who have the privilege to vote" should use it. She refused to answer if she was concerned at recent polls which show that the number of "don't knows" for Nice is still high.
Enlargement and the EU was a theme which ran through many of Mrs McAleese's addresses during her week-long visit to Thailand and Malaysia, and she spoke of the benefits to Ireland and our economy.
Mrs McAleese told academics during a keynote address to the Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations on Monday that EU enlargement would provide Ireland with a market of an additional 250 million people.
Without directly referring to the upcoming treaty vote, Mrs McAleese said enlargement would give us a bigger market to sell our goods. The inclusion of Baltic countries in an enlarged Europe would represent their "homecoming", she added.