The fact that there is a democratic deficit at the heart of the EU is not the fault of Ireland. The fact that Irish voters rejected the Nice treaty in a referendum, for a whole variety of reasons, is not something to be ashamed about. The number who were intentionally voting to block the enlargement of the EU would have been small. And the people of many other EU countries would have voted to reject Nice if they had the chance.

The militarisation of the EU is something which should be fundamentally rejected. The EU might not be poised to become a superpower on the level of the USA but there are some who would like to take it in that direction. The process of world peace requires the continuation of the breaking up of blocs and the development of the building blocks of communication and common interest in dealing with the world's problems.

Of course the process in the EU and with expectant members is a complex one. Which is all the more reason that it has to be sold to people at a national, regional and local level. The Republic's Forum on Europe has not yet changed perceptions in the Republic, nor government policy. The suggestion (from AFrI and others) that a clause or protocol should be placed in any treaty which exempted the Republic from paying for or participating in EU/western European military arrangements, is the way to go and that and might swing it for the government in the second Nice referendum.

EU democracy needs to be developed. If Irish decisions on Nice put a spanner in the works then that should be a wake up call to get it sorted, even a second 'no'. What is being sorted out now may last a long time and getting it wrong could be costly - in terms of world injustice and militarism and in terms of empowering people.

The whole process of referenda is a thorny one. When the government doesn't get the result it likes it tends to try again (as the Fianna Fail government did forty years ago to try to throw out proportional representation in voting - but the second attempt was a bigger defeat for the government!). The voters can make choices. We may or may not agree with these choices but that is part of democracy. Bertie Ahern himself welcomed the fact that Irish people had a choice on Nice - at least he did before the people cast their verdict.

Where referenda may not be appropriate is in relation to complex moral issues, such as abortion. To have five referenda in twenty years on the topic is inappropriate. The 'yes' or 'no' formula can be like a seesaw. If ever there was an argument for using a preferendum with a more sophisticated decision making mechanism then the abortion issue is certainly one. With this mechanism a much truer picture can be painted, and put into action, of where people stand rather than a simple 'yes' or 'no' which, in the recent abortion referendum, hid a whole load of complexities . As a divisive issue it would also have benefited very much from the preferendum approach where the onus would have been on campaigning groups to build support outside their own base and thus move towards some kind of consensus rather than emotive mudslinging.