I WELCOME the emphatic statement by the Catholic bishops that the Lisbon Treaty “does not undermine existing legal protections in Ireland for unborn children”. This is enlightening and I hope it will nail the lie propagated by Cóir.

MORE than anything, there is a need to overhaul the rules on the back to education allowance and the back to work enterprise allowance. In the current climate it does not make sense for someone who has lost his or her job to have to wait 12 months in order to become eligible for back to education allowance or up to two years for the back to work enterprise allowance.

AS a public representative the recent Lisbon Treaty debate has taught me that successive Governments (including one in which my party was involved) have failed in their task to address the fundamental lack of understanding of the workings of the EU institutions.