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

I spent yesterday listening to the divisiveness of the views of countries excluded from Schengen that want to be in Schengen. We are slightly different. We do not want to be in it because of our other situation with UK. For member states that have fulfilled every single monetary requirement and every single security requirement, to see existing member states blackball their membership of Schengen is as divisive an issue as I have seen in a long while at European level, where normally people work for cohesiveness. If that is what we can get out of the Schengen argument, imagine taking it into areas that are far more contentious. I would caution the idea that we can do this because we are doing with Schengen and that is some solution. Based on what I saw yesterday, it is far from solution for a lot of member states.