Quotes
The administration have been very helpful to us - President Bush has in Northern Ireland - he's continued on the policies of the previous administration. And we're dealing with EU issues. It is an honour that he comes to our country.
That's why we have constitutional amendments when you have a treaty so that you take on board the treaty.
That is standard negotiation but we have to find resolutions to it.
So you cannot give a commitment that you would not go back, I think, one country can't hold up everything, you have to consider your position.
So it has allowed us to develop, to grow and expand. It doesn't mean we've eliminated every problem in society, you never will. But it has certainly changed the whole spirit and the whole wealth of the country and the quality of life.
Quite frankly it wasn't a procedure that I liked very much because regardless of the argument if there was no good argument against the 'no' side or it could have been the 'yes' side, had to think up some spurious arguments and equally put that to the people.
People understand European issues far better because if you've had a campaign, obviously the issues have been debated and problems like this debated in the media, people have been canvassed by political activists about it and so there's a greater understanding and an affinity to it.
People join because they want to join, nobody is coerced into joining. It is based around freedom and solidarity of human rights, good governance.
People have been moving around Europe - in the early centuries, in the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth centuries Irish monks and Irish educationalists were moving around Europe.
Other countries do as well, so it's up to everybody and every country under their own constitution provision and many countries have a situation where parliament delegated that responsibility - in our case the law has always been that you have a referendum.
One of the big fears that we had in this country, and I know that a number of the smaller countries that are now in this present phase of enlargement is, would you lose your cultural identity, would you lose the cultural things - the song and dance and music and writing that people have?
On the other side of it, we do have a moral obligation and also for economic coherence in the world and under the GATT round - an obligation to try to help the developing world.
Of course people have the right to demonstrate and hopefully it is all peacefully. But we're dealing with a European agenda and it is our role to do it and it would be a gross insult for Irish people not to honour that invitation and of course he will receive a very good welcome in Ireland.
Obviously, Europe in the first case and the Common Agricultural Policy, has to look after its own citizens but there's a large cost to that.
Obviously we hold a right, if there's a major problem, to change that position. It is our view that there will not be. And obviously if people are coming to work they will only stay if there is work and if there is opportunities.
Obviously there are differences to be completed. But in the end it is - perhaps I think at the outset, somebody said that anyone in a second level college anywhere in Europe should be able to pick it up and totally understand it - that might be pressing a bit far.
Obviously the context of that in terms of the population would change dramatically if Turkey were members.
Now you have a market economy of 450 million people after the 1st May where you can trade your goods and services if you're competitive enough. But at least your competitive ability is something that is really in your own population.
Now what we are endeavouring to do is we know what the outstanding issues are, we know that we could argue forever about the rights and the wrongs.
Now to make that happen in the north, it needs people working from different communities. It means Republicans dealing with Unionists and that is a big move. We almost got there a few times but because paramilitarism hadn't stopped, it brought down the institutions.