Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Professor FitzGerald and thank him for his frank appraisal of the situation. He stated that he had no answers, but he set out a clear picture of a situation that needed to be attended to within the EU as a matter of urgency, that being, Britain's proposal to hold a referendum on exiting the EU. The consequences would be serious. The concept of the European entity that we have all discussed, lived with, worked for and strived towards for years could disintegrate. I cannot see how it would be otherwise. To postpone a decision of that nature is more debilitating than anything else that could be done. The worst case scenario is likely to emerge.

We have discussed another matter ad infinitum, that being, the degree to which each EU member state is willing to co-ordinate its efforts in economic and fiscal policy. In our naivete, we believed that this co-ordination had been in operation for the past five, seven or ten years. We now know better. Professor FitzGerald's point is important. To what extent are we serious about co-ordination now and how effective will it be?

My last point is on taking money out of the economy to re-inflate or pump it up. How effective will that be without some price controls? Let me give an example. In 1978 house property prices were removed from the consumer price index because it was felt that they would distort inflation and so on. In the most recent boom house property prices increased by between 300% and 400% in a short space of time. That happened in an insidious manner as far as the economy was concerned. Many commentators, along with ourselves as political representatives, were unaware of the accelerated speed of inflation and the damage it was doing to the economy. The property market became the bank and the financial institutions became the collateral.