The Seanad yesterday passed the legislation to allow the holding of a Nice Treaty referendum.
The House approved the legislation without a vote. It now goes to the President, Mrs McAleese, for signature. The Dáil approved it on Wednesday.
Speaking in the Seanad yesterday, the Minister for Europe, Mr Dick Roche, challenged the opponents of ratification of the Nice Treaty to show how they would be proved right despite overwhelming evidence they had been wrong over the last 30 years.
Mr Roche singled out the issue of taxation, saying that the No side had been wrong in everything that had been claimed about taxation by those in that quarter.
He said that the setting of corporate taxation rates, which were very important in terms of investment in this State, would remain the preserve of the Government.
He said the people had the right to have their viewpoint and he would defend that right to the last breath in his body.
But he could not but be stunned by the arrogance of people in Sinn Féin, people in the Green Party, people in the National Platform and other people in the No to Nice campaign who had never created a single solitary job in this country, and who were dismissing all the advice of those promoting Nice.
He had already explained to the House the very words of the Economist Intelligence Unit which had spelt out that we would risk a lot in this country by a negative vote.
Europe had been not only the most successful peace process ever known, from our point of view it had been the threshold to the prosperity we now enjoyed.
Mr Brian Hayes, the Fine Gael leader in the House, said if we voted No again, as a nation we needed to be clear about the implications for this country. We would be saying to Europe and to the rest of the world that we would be part of a second division, a group of countries on the outside track.
"If Ireland votes No to Nice some other treaty will have to be put in its place.
"Can you imagine an Irish Minister renegotiating a treaty where Ireland had twice voted against such a treaty?"