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

I apologise for my late arrival; I had questions being taken in the House and it is difficult to be in the two places at the same time. I wish to pursue a few items the Minister of State mentioned. I ask him to outline the possible implications of GMO maize on this country. To what extent have the various stakeholders been consulted on the matter? To what degree is the cereal industry likely to be affected? To what extent have our European colleagues examined that impact? To what extent will future developments in the area of world trading in cereals apply?

The Minister of State rightly indicated that the European Commission has recently announced some modification to its energy policy with particular reference to reviewing alternative energy requirements. It needs to be borne in mind that we are in a somewhat more difficult situation than some of our European colleagues in that we do not have oil and have a limited amount of gas. The gas that we have is taking a long time to come on stream. We certainly are dependent on either imports or alternative energy. I ask the Minister of State to impress on his European colleagues the importance of recognising the provisions we need to make in order to keep within the emissions requirements and the degree to which we can economically provide alternative energy in this jurisdiction without reliance on our colleagues.

The Minister of State referred to the economic and financial sphere, which will bear ongoing perusal and monitoring. Over the past ten or 15 years, that particular stream could have borne considerably more attention than it got. Obviously if certain indicators had been identified in reasonable time, the full extent of the economic situation, in which we now find ourselves would not have been as bad.

I do not want to go over topics mentioned by other speakers. Enlargement was discussed at yesterday's meeting and I do not want to go through the whole thing again. It should be brought to the attention of all our colleagues in Europe that we are in a state of flux to a certain extent. One major country is considering exiting the European Union, which could have a huge impact on the entire continent of Europe, the European Union and the eurozone, internally and externally. That is an issue that needs to be kept to the fore and its consequences for the rest of the European Union examined on a daily basis because to quote John Donne, "No man is an island". There is a tendency in the European Union, including in this island, to presume that we are all islands. We cannot exist that way; we coexist and depend on each other. The extent of that interdependence should be borne in mind and will emerge as having greater importance as time goes by.