Dr. Gavin Barrett:

There are some very interesting questions there. The Deputy mentioned optimism and pessimism - as some members may have noticed from my contributions to The Irish Times, I am something of an incurable optimist about the European Union. It rarely fails to surprise and it is still there, and yet it moves, as Galileo might have said. There are certainly grounds for optimism. The ECB has played a significant role in this regard. Ultimately, its intervention is a holding action, and we need more. We have not done too badly so far and it has done enough to survive. Growth in the eurozone will certainly play a key role and the prospect of debt relief for Ireland remains important also. Answers have been provided for some of the questions. The European Union is a half-completed house. We have a very small "e" but a very large "m" - we have monetary union but a very incomplete economic union. We are now catching up in constructing the economic union. Quite an amount remains to be done, but much is going on, as we have seen.

The Deputy asked if we were constrained in our choices. Of course we are. Sometimes we need to pay more attention to real sovereignty, as opposed to nominal sovereignty. The choices for a small state can sometimes be very limited indeed. The degree to which it can influence its destiny can be quite limited. I believe that being in the European Union allows us to increase our sovereignty - in other words, increase our power to influence the decisions that affect every Irish man and woman. That is a crucial reason for being in the European Union and also the eurozone.

In terms of leaving the euro, monetary unions are easier to join than to leave. The decision to go into the euro in the first place was crucial. The costs of leaving a monetary union can be enormous because, generally, the reason for a country to leave a monetary union is so that it can devalue its currency. As everyone is aware of that, it faces the risk of investment flight, bank runs and all such things. The thought of leaving a monetary union only occurs when the costs of staying in it are so enormous that they actually justify the potential trauma of leaving it. I do not believe any state, including Greece, is contemplating that at the moment and I do not believe it will happen.

The European Union as a patchwork quilt is not a bad analogy. It works at multiple speeds and it appears that will continue for a while. I cannot see the United Kingdom, for example, joining the eurozone any time soon, so we will continue to have multiple speeds. However, at the same time, its centripetal effect is also very striking. In other words, states not in the eurozone at the moment will join it. There are only around four states in the European Union that will not join the euro shortly. While I agree it is a patchwork quilt, to a certain extent the patchwork nature of it is a temporary phenomenon in respect of many states, although there are exceptions - I would include, for the time being at least, the UK's objections to the eurozone in that regard.

Deputy Kyne asked whether more surveillance of budgets would increase anti-EU feeling. I believe the answer is "Yes" if national parliaments do not play their role in this regard. This is why it is crucial that the Oireachtas consider very deeply its role in these measures. The more Europe becomes involved, the more pressure there will be for an adequate democratic response. Some of that can come from the European Parliament, but some of it must come from national parliaments. It is incumbent on the Oireachtas to think about this carefully. There may be winners and losers among national parliaments in this crisis. Some national parliaments will come out of this financial crisis stronger and some will come out of it weaker. I hope the Oireachtas comes out of it stronger because we will all pay a price if it does not. I may not have answered all the questions, but those are the answers that strike me.