SEANAD REPORT:CLARIFICATION ON the relationship of agriculture to the Lisbon Treaty was urgently needed, Seanad leader Donie Cassidy said. The House would debate the issue next Wednesday.
He was reacting to exchanges by members over the relevance of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks to the treaty.
Pearse Doherty (SF) vehemently maintained that it was an absolute nonsense to argue that there was no connection between the two. An article of the treaty took international agreements away from unanimity and into qualified majority voting. It was worrying that, in contending otherwise, some Senators were either deliberately telling lies or were ill-informed about the treaty's contents.
When Mr Doherty complained that untruths were being peddled, Cathaoirleach Pat Moylan said he was not complying with the rules for seeking a debate and that if he did not resume his seat he would be directed to leave the chamber.
Deirdre de Búrca (GP) said the Sinn Féin claim that Ireland would lose its veto on negotiations within the WTO on agriculture was completely false. Ireland did not have a veto on agricultural negotiations at present.
Mr Doherty: "I said international trade agreements, not agricultural negotiations." Did Ireland have a veto on such trade negotiations?
Ms de Búrca said if farmers voted for the Lisbon Treaty it would not change the negotiating position of Ireland, or any veto, because no veto existed at present.
Eugene Regan (FG) said that former TD Joe Higgins had claimed in The Irish Times yesterday that the treaty would open the way for privatisation of public services. Sinn Féin had been trotting out the same line. "It is important that the relevant minister makes a statement on the issue of privatisation as it concerns public undertakings and public services. They are not and never have been interfered with by Europe, except to the extent that they are required to comply with the competition and internal market rules . . ."
Minister for Rural Development Éamon Ó Cuív told the House that from next week the department would be proceeding with the new Rural Development Programme, under which "our funding of €425 million, three times what it was before, will see an investment of almost €1 billion in measures to develop rural enterprise and quality of life in the period to 2013."