Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

One of the tragedies of Brexit that is never talked about is the heft, balance and influence the UK brought to the core EU member states, as they were, in terms of its relationship with the Franco-German axis and the economic strength and heft it brought to the Union.

If it had stayed in it, it would have left the bloc in a much stronger position to deal with eastward expansion, compared to the bloc without it. There is nothing we can do to change that now.

Regarding concentric relationships, Dr. Colfer referred to Britain and Türkiye. I do not have a problem with that. That is a logical relationship between non-member states. However, what I have a problem with is the idea of creating concentric rings of membership where, effectively, groups push ahead to do things in a particular way. It always sounds good until a group does something you totally and fundamentally disagree with. Where does that leave what are supposedly equal fellow members who have been left on the outside? Where does that leave them and what protections are there to protect them?

With regard to membership, this committee has worked incredibly hard, along with the Irish Government and various other people in favour of enlargement, to try to ensure we achieve real enlargement. My worry would be that if we create the concentric ring idea, it would park everybody from North Macedonia, Moldova, Ukraine - you name it - in one of those nice outer rings and we would effectively go on with business as usual. Business as usual will not give us the security Europe needs in this century.