The Taoiseach reiterated his view that there should be a review of the manner in which the Government provided public information on referendums. However, Mr Ahern told Mr John Gormley (Green Party, Dublin South East) that no referendum was planned at this stage relating to the McKenna judgment requiring governments to outline the for and against arguments in referendums.
The Taoiseach said he was extremely pleased the Amsterdam Treaty referendum was passed, but, obviously, the majority was not as high as he would have liked.
"I thought that the No vote, while quite high, was not a cause of any great concern. On a good poll, the fact is that over 60 per cent of the people emphatically supported the Amsterdam Treaty," he added.
"I believe that the information available in the public domain was sufficient but, as I said over the weekend and as I have said in this House, I do think that the arrangements dealing with the referendums, as we had in this case, are open to examination."
The Labour leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, said the scale of the No vote, the highest in any referendum on the European issue, was a cause for concern for everybody but particularly for the EU institutions themselves.
If it was to be repeated in other states, it might well result, for example, in the Amsterdam Treaty not being ratified in Denmark.
He asked if the Government had any proposals to adopt a more proactive view or position regarding European institutions, as, for example, making Council of Ministers' meetings open to the public and the media, or endorsing the call by Mr Jacques Delors that the process of selecting a new president of the commission be done in a transparent and democratic manner.
Agreeing that the No vote was quite high, Mr Ahern said one reason put forward was a lack of information, which he did not accept. There was an enormous amount of information, which the media carried daily.
He did not believe too many of the public studied the legal text, but there was a big demand for the White Paper. He believed European institutions had to make matters more part of the day-today life of people so that they could genuinely feel that they affected them.
Pressed further by Mr Quinn, the Taoiseach said he did not want to comment on matters not discussed by the Government, but he supported the principle of trying to make the workings of the European Commission and Council more open and understandable to the public.
The Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, asked the Taoiseach to elaborate on his view that there was no support for federalism in Ireland. Was he aware the Maastricht Treaty committed the State to an ever-closer union with the people of Europe which, in essence, involved federalism?
Mr Ahern said nobody had done more work than Fianna Fail and the Government to ensure that the referendum was passed. He felt European integration and the concept of federalism put forward by some people were different matters.
He said the campaign had become confused because people were putting forward issues which were not in the agreement. "We managed to explain it to people, as best we could under the circumstances, and the people voted overwhelmingly, 60-40, which is a good majority in any referendum," he added.
The Democratic Left leader, Mr Proinsias De Rossa, said what was clearly needed was a political debate about issues such as the Amsterdam Treaty. A commission presenting neutral information was insufficient to generate the interest in what was essentially a political agreement relating to the EU.
"For that reason, we need to look seriously at a different way of ensuring that there is a real political debate around issues such as the development of the EU. Information on its own is not enough," he added.
Mr De Rossa said the Government should examine the socio-economic breakdown of those who voted for and against. It seemed to him from a very cursory glance at the figures, those constituencies containing the most marginalised of citizens were the ones least enthusiastic about the EU because they did not feel the benefits of it. The Taoiseach said that on a quick look at the constituencies it seemed there was a higher No vote in urban areas suffering social disadvantage.
Mr Ahern said there was little doubt that recent court judgments had hampered the conduct of referendum campaigns. "In my view, the current regime is overly restrictive," he added.
He said it could not be denied that the onus to meet every pro-argument with an anti-argument did not realistically deal with the situation and did not reflect the concerns of the people when it could be seen that 95 per cent of people had voted for the Belfast Agreement, although the argument had to be balanced equally. "I think it should be reviewed and it will be reviewed," the Taoiseach added.