I believe those voting in the forthcoming referendum procedures should vote No to the Amsterdam Treaty and Yes to the Belfast Agreement.

The Amsterdam Treaty, if ratified by EU member-states, would represent a significant step on the path towards European unity and the creation of a United States of Europe, not unlike the United States of America.

I do not want to become a citizen of a vast, unwieldly conglomerate of states with different languages, traditions and cultures. I recognise this as the ultimate goal of those who framed and drafted the Amsterdam Treaty.

The European Economic Community (EEC), which broke down trade barriers between member-states and established a freetrade area for those states which acceded to the Treaty of Rome, had much to recommend it. Time will tell whether the benefits to small, vulnerable nation-states like Ireland have been sufficient to compensate for what we have lost.

Norway and Switzerland are examples of countries which have had the courage and independence to hold out against the tide and have lived to tell the tale.

Now, a much larger canvas of European integration is beginning to unfold. If we agree to participate we will be giving away the power of control over our destiny to an extent which most people do not realise.

This has already begun to emerge in a very significant manner in the jurisdiction over our domestic affairs which has been asserted by the Court of the European Communities in Luxembourg, and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

At the time when Irish people were giving a resounding No to divorce in the 1986 referendum, Mrs Mary Robinson SC, flanked by Prof William Duncan of Trinity College Dublin was asking the Court of Human Rights to compel Ireland to introduce divorce as part of our obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights.

The court rejected that application, but had it acceded to it, Mrs Robinson and those assisting her would have succeeded in thwarting the will of the Irish people in a manner which could lead to the destruction of Irish family life. Another example of the scope for defeating the will of the Irish people on an important issue of public law and morality emerged during the Norris case.

Sen David Norris brought an action in the High Court in Ireland challenging the constitutionality of the law which made it a crime for males to engage in the form of homosexual activity known as buggery.

He lost his case before Mr Justice McWilliam in the High Court and an appeal before the Supreme Court. He then took the matter to the European Court of Human Rights, represented by Mrs Robinson SC, where he asked the court for a finding which would have the effect of overruling the findings of the High Court and Supreme Court. This application was successful.

Ireland was found to be in breach of its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights and, in effect, was directed to put its house in order. All this with no regard for the will of the Irish people.

To the credit of successive Irish governments, nothing whatever was done to give effect to this judgment for several years. However, ultimately, an amending Act was passed, at a time when a poll indicated that the Irish people were opposed by a significant majority to any change in the law. This amendment was pushed through the Dail with no real debate and no formal vote taken.

The evidence given during that case in the High Court and the Supreme Court was sufficient to lead to the conclusion in both courts that this kind of homosexual activity was harmful to those who engaged in it and harmful to society.

The link established by the evidence between this lifestyle and a number of sexually-transmitted diseases, some potentially fatal, was recognised before ever the scourge of AIDS on a worldwide basis had emerged as the most dramatic confirmation that the findings of the Irish courts were well founded.

We were told by a European court that we must permit a lifestyle which is as harmful as drug addiction to those who practise it and to society as a whole. The finding of the court has been followed - as was to be expected - by a militant and aggressive campaign to remove the stigma attached to the practice of buggery.

Let us be under no illusion about the Amsterdam Treaty's prohibition of "discrimination based on sexual orientation".

Yet another cause championed before the European courts by Mrs Robinson and other lawyers was the defence of proceedings brought against the Union of Students in Ireland, and the organisations known as the Well Woman Centre and Open Door Counselling.

All three organisations engaged in the counselling of Irish women contemplating abortion by furnishing addresses in the UK where these services were provided. They did so at a time when the High Court and Supreme Court were making findings condemning such activities as illegal under the Constitution.

Here again, Mrs Robinson and other lawyers had resort to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, and to the Court of the European Communities, and obtained a judgment from the court in Strasbourg ordering the government to pay a sum of £100,000/£200,000 to Open Door Counselling and the Dublin Well Woman Centre in compensation and costs.

In other words we, the taxpayers of Ireland, were ordered by the European Court to pay damages and costs to two organisations whose activities had been declared illegal and had been condemned by both High Court and Supreme Court.

Any Irish government worth its salt would have refused to give effect to this judgment, or to the earlier judgment in the Norris case, and taken a stand on the principle that the sovereignty of the Irish people in matters as fundamental as the moral law must remain unimpaired regardless of the consequences internationally.

To its shame, the government weakly gave in, as it had done on the decision in the Norris case, and paid costs and compensation to parties who had flagrantly breached the protection to the life of the unborn child guaranteed under the Constitution.

These are examples of the serious inroads already made on our power to decide for ourselves what is best for the Irish people in certain fundamental areas of our legal system.

We are dealing with courts in Strasbourg and Luxembourg made up of judges whose attitudes on the moral issues of our time appear to be at variance with what we should expect to find in the courts of a country with a strong Christian tradition.

If the Amsterdam Treaty is adopted, the process by which our control over our affairs has been eroded will take a giant step forward.

We are assured that we are protected by the right of veto vested in each member-state before important decisions can be made.

How illusory the so-called veto can be was shown when Denmark voted to opt out of the Maastricht Treaty. Under the Treaty of Rome, that should have been the end of the matter until Denmark changed its mind. However, instead of leaving the matter in abeyance to await that outcome, a decision was taken that the other member-states would continue with ratification (led by little Ireland) and thereby apply intolerable pressure on the Danes to reverse their decision.

The outcome was as anticipated. The so-called veto proved illusory when an attempt was made to exercise it in practice.

Our attitude should be that we agreed to economic union with our European partners and we do not wish to go any further; that we refuse to be bludgeoned into accepting political union and insist on retaining our independence to decide what is the rule of law without submitting to dictation from the EU, the Court of Human Rights, the Court of the European Communities, the UN, or any other international body.

Rory O'Hanlon is a former judge of the High Court and a former president of the Law Reform Commission