Speaking in the Seanad on October 16 2002 on the Second Stage of the European Union (Scrutiny) Bill, I said:

I welcome the Bill in so far as it is better than nothing, but it is not enough and will do little or nothing to address the question of scrutiny and the gap which has become especially obvious since the referendum on the Nice treaty last year.

It was to address that gap that the Labour Party introduced this measure as a Private Members' Bill, but this cut-down, emasculated version the government seeks to rush through into law almost on the eve of the new referendum will not fill the gap. If anything, it will serve to increase the cynicism felt by any voter for whom the gap in scrutiny is an issue.

This measure will not revolutionise the way we approach our relationship with Europe. To that extent, it will fail. A revolution is exactly what we need. We need to do something more than the Bill to create a healthy relationship between the people and the European Union to which I hope sincerely we will pledge our allegiance on Saturday.

The sad truth is that for 30 years our attitude could have been summed up by the phrase "grab the money and run". Instead of seeking to involve the people in the myriad of decisions concerning Europe, successive Governments judged that the best way to keep voters on side was to wave cheques at them. The brand image of Europe projected by every government since we entered in 1973 was one of the gravy train which was given as the reason we should be involved in Europe.

Time has shown this to be a short-sighted policy. When the gravy train has run into the buffers we have discovered that, among the various peoples of the European Union, the Irish are the most ignorant about what has been happening. They are the least interested in the issues affecting the future of the European Union. With the cheques rapidly becoming a thing of the past, many do not know what Europe is for.

It is little wonder that, when the people were called on to vote on the Nice treaty last year, the vast majority did not understand what was going on. This was not just because of a complacent government which failed to campaign effectively in favour of the treaty last year, something it recognises it failed to do, it was just as much the fruit of 30 years of keeping the people on the sidelines where European issues were concerned.

I am not so naive as to imagine that the difficulty of involving the people with Europe was the fault of successive governments to apply effective scrutiny to European affairs. The democratic deficit is an issue throughout the Union and it is right that it is high on the agenda of the European Convention which is seeking to draw a road map for the future development of the European Union. Whereas others have failed to a greater or lesser extent, we in Ireland have failed abysmally.

One only has to read the regular statistics from EUROSTAT to see the truth of this. For example, Ireland repeatedly scores highly in terms of approval of membership of the European Union. However, when it comes to knowledge of EU institutions and interest in the issues which concern them, our scores are consistently among the lowest. This bears out what I said about the 30 years of mismanaging the problem.

Our traditional approval of EU membership has been generated by the gravy train to which I referred and the repeated cheque waving in which we have been involved. Our lack of knowledge and interest in matters European have been generated by our consistent failure to look beyond the cheques and benefits we received and our refusal to do anything more than put our feet up and enjoy wherever the gravy train was going to take us.

That is what we need to change and we need to do it quickly. It must be immediate. We do not have time to relax on it. That is the reason we need a revolution in the way we approach the European Union.

The referendum on Saturday, whatever way it goes, will not be the end of the story. If we vote "Yes," as I hope we will, it will not be the last time the people will be asked to vote on Europe. Less than three years from now we will be faced with the need to approve another new treaty which will be much more wide-ranging and fundamental in its implications than anything in the Nice treaty.

If by the time of the next referendum all the changes we have made in the way we approach the European Union are contained in the tiny Bill before us, we should not be surprised if the people in 2005 show the same lack of knowledge and interest as they did last year and which, according to the Referendum Commission, they still show a year later.

Between the lines of the Bill I see two baleful influences working together.

The first is the customary struggle between the executive and the legislature. Whenever it gets the chance, each Government seeks to sideline parliament and reduce its influence. It is an unnecessary policy in a system such as ours where the government always has a majority in both Houses. It is a foolish policy which does not make sense because it creates an unnecessary barrier between the government and the people.

Added to that influence is another equally negative influence, namely, the struggle of the bureaucrats to control everything which relates to and must be done with the European Union. Any Ministers who have had dealings with Europe will say all the real decision-making is in the hands of officials with the politicians wheeled in at the last minute to dot the "i's" and cross the "t's".

Ms O'Rourke: They are a mysterious body called COREPER.

I have not heard the term before, but can understand it. In this case, the government and the officials are singing from the same hymn book and the song is called, Hands off the EU. Scrutiny is skirted around in the Bill by the use of qualifications such as "as far as practicable," by reservations about matters deemed to be confidential and by a refusal to include the notion of a negotiating mandate which would be set by the parliament.

While this is a worthy Bill, it is a pathetic attempt to con the public into thinking that things have changed fundamentally in the way we deal with European affairs. The sad truth is that they have not changed and we will have to ensure we find a method beyond the Bill to ensure they change in the years ahead.