Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I too am pro-European. The European Union is good for us as European citizens. With the protections and benefits it offers us, we are all better off as workers, travellers, women and students. There is almost no area of life that has not benefited from or been enhanced by the rights and privileges that have flown to us from Europe over the years. That is not to mention the improvement in our infrastructure owing to EU funding and the funds that still flow to us to allow banks to open every morning.

However, I am not slavishly blind to the Union's faults, nor am I unaware that the institution is not perfect. I do agree that a debate is needed on what we expect from the Union and what we are willing to give back to it. Further integration will be necessary. We need to bring the public with us.

There is a disconnection and some disaffection with Europe. However, this is at least partly due to us, as politicians. Over the years, it has suited us to blame the Union for every decision we did not like, without making any effort to explain the rationale behind those decisions, either the long-term benefits or the widespread gains that would ultimately accrue. Over the years, we have sent Ministers to Europe to "fight" for us. Even the media uses the expression "fight" as if there were somebody against us. It has suited us at times to have faceless figures of oppression and bureaucracy to blame for our woes when, in fact, the Union is no more than 27 equally flawed and equally angst-ridden countries, all scrambling to do the best they can for their citizens and for us all collectively. The best analogy is the resemblances and suspicion that exist between Dublin and the remaining counties. The tortured and slightly schizophrenic relationship between urban and rural areas in Ireland does not blind us to the fact that we are all part of a single entity that is interdependent and mutually sustaining. It is precisely that love-hate relationship we have with Europe, despite all its warts, that makes us realise we must face up to dealing with those warts. We must be part of the debate and try to mould the Union such that it can meet what are undoubtedly the challenges of the 21st century.

It is true that, in setting up the eurozone, some regime should have been put in place to allow countries to exit. However, to pretend we can now leave the eurozone and go it alone, such that all our problems will be solved, is to forget that we did once go it alone, print our own money and allow our currencies to float. I have very few happy memories of those years. Anybody who lived through those years will realise it is easy now to blame Brussels or Germany for the crushing blow caused by the burden of the link between bank and sovereign debt, but this burden was not placed on us by the Union. We opted for it two full years before the troika ever turned up. We opted for that when we gave the guarantee. Rewriting history and engaging in a xenophobic fantasy about a better Ireland and going it alone on a rock on the edge of the Atlantic is not just unrealistic, but also dangerous and seditious. It undermines our own self-confidence and the confidence of others in us. If we care about this country and our children's future, we should strive to shape the new Europe and not fight it.

See this speech in context