The Nice Treaty was being "pushed through" the Dail and "pushed at the people". There was not enough discussion about it, according to Mr Michael Ring (FG, Mayo).

He said urban councils and Leader boards had more power than the Dail, which was just a "talking shop". This was because all the legislation was coming from Europe.

Some was good and some not suitable for Ireland but "we are tied into it." He was "worried about possible future legislation and worried that people will not know what they are voting for in the Nice Treaty referendum".

They should be fully informed on all future legislation whether it concerned abortion, a European army or other matters. The Irish people would make a wise decision and should get all the facts and not just the "spin".

He was speaking on the second day of the debate on the 24th Amendment of the Constitution Bill which will allow the State to ratify the Nice Treaty once agreed in a referendum.

"What are members elected to this House for?" asked Mr Ring. "Those who died for Ireland in 1916, 1921 and 1922, including my grandfather, would turn in their graves if they saw how we are handing over our powers to Europe."

The debate was about EU enlargement but "how can the EU be enlarged when current members cannot agree to implement the regulations as they are?"

Mr Ring pointed to the new euro currency. How could it be justified "when customers travelling to Britain will have to change their money to sterling? That is not a common market."

Britain should have to decide whether it was an EU member or not and not be allowed to opt out of legislation it did not like. Ireland had accepted legislation which it did not like "but as good Europeans we accepted it and played our part".

Ireland should play its part in the EU army. "We cannot allow other countries to fight our wars and protect our country. We cannot have people from Britain, Belgium and France protecting our shores while we preserve our neutrality."

The Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, condemned the Green party, among the strongest opponents of the treaty. He said it had some of the "wackiest proposals of any political party in all of the European Union".

He said if the Greens ever became a majority party in government "we would have the wackiest Republic, not just in Europe but in all the world".

Europe had been good in so many ways for Ireland that it would be an act of "gross negligence and deep injustice were Ireland now to vote against enlargement" through the treaty.

The Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, said he looked forward to EU enlargement as an opportunity rather than a threat. An enlarged EU would have an additional 100 million consumers. "This is a clear opportunity for a country like Ireland which has to export so much of its food production."

Mr Austin Currie (FG, Dublin West) said he was a European federalist but the movement towards that goal in the treaty was not what he would have wished for. However, the EU had made an enormous contribution to world peace and to peace in Northern Ireland.