Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Less confidence inspiring is the Taoiseach's attitude to the concerns expressed by the British Prime Minister, Mr. David Cameron, and what lies behind those concerns. There is a need for the Taoiseach to very sharply distance himself and this country from what is motivating the Prime Minister in his attitude towards the EU referendum.

I am less concerned about the European Union than I am about the future of Europe and European citizens, which is an important distinction. Would the Taoiseach agree that Europe is at quite a dangerous crossroads and the motivations behind a possible Brexit point in a rather dangerous and worrying direction? To put it simply, is the British Prime Minister not pandering to the racist and xenophobic forces in British society, particularly UKIP, whose anti-immigrant, anti-refugee rhetoric is alarming?

This comes against a background of a very worrying rise of the far-right, xenophobic, racist and in some cases outright fascist forces in Europe, most notably manifest by the growth of Golden Dawn, outright neo-Nazis, in Greece. The British Prime Minister is pandering to these people. They are getting an audience because disillusionment with the European Union is reaching crisis levels. Certain forces are willing in a cynical, nasty and reactionary way to try to channel that disillusionment with Europe in a very dark direction. We must distance ourselves from this and call it for what it is because I believe that is what the Prime Minister is doing and the dogs on the street know it. He is pandering to forces on his right that he is worried could outflank the Tories and that is a dangerous road to go down.

Is it not also the case that the disillusionment that these forces can tap into is the responsibility of the European Union itself given the kinds of things it has done to the people of Greece when they demanded an end to austerity, change, fairness, respect for their democratic mandate and were instead bullied into submission? They were told by the European Central Bank, an unaccountable, unelected body, that it would cut off the money if they tried to end the austerity policies as they promised. Is that not discrediting the European Union?

I take some hope from a different kind of reaction to disillusionment with the European Union in the form of the support for Mr. Jeremy Corbyn, MP. However, when one looks at the vicious reactionary assault of the Tory press on Mr. Corbyn, one sees the kinds of forces we are ranged against. I would like to see the Taoiseach echo some of the things Mr. Corbyn is saying. I met Mr. Corbyn's economic advisor, Mr. Richard Murphy, the renowned international tax expert who is advising him on his economic policies. He told me something very interesting that relates to the issue of competition and so on that the Taoiseach mentioned, which is one of the other concerns of the British Prime Minister in all this. Mr. Murphy told how he used to be in business here in Ireland when he engaged in the manufacture of game boards for Trivial Pursuit in County Clare. He said he had an interesting engagement with our tax regime at the time he was setting that up. He said he met IDA Ireland officials who were selling him the advantages of the low corporate tax regime here and special tax designated zones.

See this speech in context