Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

This is an extremely important moment in the history of Ireland. As we find our former friends and allies in Washington and London drifting off in the direction of economic nationalism, we must reassert our place in Europe. Last week's events in Washington will be as important as the meeting of the European Council later this week. The controversy surrounding remarks made by the Taoiseach in Washington last week does not only revolve around the issue of trying to ingratiate ourselves with President Trump regarding Doonbeg golf course. Of equal or perhaps greater significance were some of the Taoiseach's other comments and the manner in which he, on behalf of the country, sided with the Republican Administration. He did do so in his American dream speech, in which he took a gung-ho approach to individualisation and the misguided direction in which the United States had moved. However, he also congratulated President Trump on adopting Irish corporate tax policy, which was a deeply mistaken approach that will haunt us in our negotiations with our European colleagues.

The traditional argument we have made in defence of our corporation tax policy has been that it is necessary because Ireland is a peripheral country in an isolated location without an industrial past. This line was used to justify a differentiated corporate tax system. However, to use this argument to justify President Trump's tax break for his rich friends undermines our case and promotes what can only be viewed as a global race to the bottom in terms of the percentage of corporation tax paid. This approach is not in our interests and places us in a bad position for the forthcoming European Council meeting at which the key issue will be whether the European Union should adopt the OECD's approach to taxing digital monopolies or take immediate action in this area. The comments made by the Taoiseach in Washington will hinder our arguments and capabilities in the debate at the weekend and were, therefore, a major mistake.

We must start to review our position. The Green Party very much welcomes Ireland's connections with the United States. US companies have been extremely beneficial in developing the economy and are very welcome in this country. However, there is a fundamental injustice in the world. My colleagues in the European Green Party, including Philippe Lamberts and others, have carried out detailed research in this area. They estimate that Europe is losing approximately €1 trillion in unpaid corporation tax as a result of improper avoidance. We must remedy this problem. Notwithstanding the Taoiseach's comment that we do not "accept that companies, including large digital ones, should pay little or no tax on their profits," the truth is that that is what is happening. These companies are not paying 12.5% corporation tax but 1% or 2%. We cannot prevaricate or stop every initiative from our colleagues aimed at addressing this matter. The issue will come back to haunt us.

Our negotiating position has been weakened in the sense that in seeking a good Brexit deal - by and large, our European colleagues are showing great solidarity towards Ireland - we are being bad on climate change. I have just attended a meeting of the Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment at which I asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Denis Naughten, to state whether he supported the European Parliament's proposal to increase the target for renewable energy from 27% to 35%. The Minister made clear that we were not in favour of the proposal. Ireland is in the low corporation tax, high carbon, get-everything-we-can school of economic nationalism, which is not a clever position to take at this time. We will be caught out at some point and the goodwill towards us will be undermined by this approach.

People can read the Taoiseach's speeches the same way I can and we will be seen as being closer to Donald Trump's Washington than we are to our colleagues in Europe, which is a real shame.

I take a slightly different position from my Fianna Fáil colleagues on the Brexit aspects of the Council meeting. I listened to Deputy Donnelly's comments yesterday and my instinct is that at this moment it may not be a bad thing for us just to pause slightly for breath on the Border issue. It is not that we should undermine or change our basic strategy, which has been the right one, but it is about thinking ourselves in some depth about the nature of the protocol and the east-west relationships that we must maintain. That will have a consequence on the North-South issues. If we can minimise the east-west disturbance between Ireland and Britain, it makes it much easier to get a North-South agreement. By having a singular focus on the North-South aspect, we may detract from that task.

Taking a pause for thought and not being centre stage in every single debate on Brexit just for the next few weeks would also give us the chance to look at the nature of the deal going through. Colleagues of mine are today echoing what I believe Mr. Nick Clegg, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, has said in arguing that we should be very careful that we do not just buy into a deal that gives us a customs union connection with the North but does not give us the same conditions as Single Market access. From my understanding and the briefings we have had with the Department, the protocol we have does not give us Single Market status on the island. We may need to strengthen it. For that reason it makes sense to consider it.

The Minister of State, Deputy McEntee, and the Minister, Deputy Coveney, have done a very useful service in the sharing of information on how these negotiations are going. I was very taken in listening to the some of the commentary on where we are with the withdrawal agreement. The likes of Ms Patricia King from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions made the very valid point that the nature of the deal that is starting to take shape is one that does not include strong labour and environmental standards. The Minister of State, Deputy McEntee, might correct me on that. It is my recollection of some of the conversations I have heard in this regard. It goes to my earlier point that we cannot just see the world filtered all the time through the eyes of economic and short-term trade interests and not take into account the need for environmental and labour standards. That seems to be the way the UK is going and it is willing to sacrifice everything just to get some sort of mythical ability to form trade deals.

To restore some of our reputation as a country that helped negotiate the 17 sustainable goals in New York and which has an interest in some of the big environmental and economic justice challenges of our time, we should be looking to see how we can stitch into any exit or withdrawal agreement some sort of maintenance of environmental and labour standards. That is where it is at its weakest. We have a particularly valuable role to play because we can and should have a good relationship with the UK Government in this regard and we have such strong cultural and familial ties. I have ten first cousins in the UK and we are not going to give up on them or connections with friends and relations on that island. For a range of cultural as well as economic reasons, we more than anyone else should be using this period to work with the British as best we can, as deranged as they seem to be currently. We must see what environmental, climate and energy standards can be worked on with the British. It should be the same with our colleagues in the North.

The Taoiseach is never here for the closing statements on the European Council meetings. I know he has a busy diary. I was taken by what he said when I asked him recently who he has spoken to in the North. He divided Northern politics into a top and bottom five. The Green Party is in the bottom five and nobody in the Government speaks to it because it just deals with the sectarian politics. The Democratic Unionist Party, DUP, and Sinn Féin are effectively the only people listened to or spoken to. That is not working and it needs to change. By speaking with the likes of my colleague, Mr. Steven Agnew, in the North, the Government might get a connection with people from the unionist tradition to whom we must speak. It should not just be about the DUP and Sinn Féin. The Government could speak to Deputy Paul Murphy's colleagues in the North as well. Why is it that this Government is just buying into the idea that there are two types of politics and that we speak to the sectarian parties but forget about the others? That needs to change.

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