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

I welcome the witnesses and compliment them on their efforts in Ireland's participation in international trade and diplomacy. I compliment the diplomatic corps and the business sector on their engagement on, involvement in and support of the statutory services during our Presidency, with particular reference to the ongoing need and the role they have played. Congratulations should also be extended to the unions for the constructive role they have played in supporting the national cause, nationally and internationally. It has not been an easy thing to do in the type of climate in which we have been living and we should recognise it officially.

I am concerned about the point made by the Vice Chairman about reducing our diplomatic influence in EU member states because we are reducing our influence in the European Parliament numerically. The statisticians will state numerically we retain the same strength we had before and that we have a greater influence than some of our bigger neighbours in terms of exact proportionality, but democracy is not about proportionality and never was. One could reduce the membership of all member states by 20, in which case a number of member states would have no representation and one could still state theoretically the rest of the EU is proportionally represented. I do not accept this. There is a need to recognise now that we have not reached a juncture whereby each member state in the European Union recognises it is partly responsible for the EU itself. There is a tendency in this country, and I have spoken about it many times before as have other people, to refer to "our Commissioner". It should not be "our Commissioner". It should be the EU Commissioner for whatever responsibility that person has. The Commissioner appointed in Germany, France or the UK should be equally responsible for the portfolio to the Irish people and the Irish nation. The thinking must change fairly substantially before we can move forward to the extent we think as a union. We do not do so yet. When we do get to this point then we can think about the change in diplomatic representation, but I would be very concerned about doing so beforehand.

We do not often flag the strides the Irish economy has made since joining the European Union. For example, 20 years ago our GDP per capita was approximately one third of the average in the EFTA countries. This has all changed. Even in the difficult circumstances in which we have found ourselves we are at least on par with, or ahead of, most of our European colleagues. This again is largely due to the efforts of the business and diplomatic sectors and the policy being pursued at present. It is hugely important we recognise this.

I wish to briefly refer to the influence of Ireland within the European Union. With the US worldwide withdrawal from policing, as it used to be called, having regard to unfortunate experiences in recent times, there is quite strong evidence a vacuum is developing. I do not believe there is the same respect for the European Union by some of our neighbours as existed a few years ago. I draw a parallel with the war in Bosnia, where it was quite clear to a perpetrator nobody would or could interfere for historical reasons and did not interfere very long time. Eventually there was interference in the form of US intervention. This brought about a complete change in the pattern in the area. There were sudden recognition this cannot go on forever, and it did not go on forever. We remember all of the calls for intervention from the EU but it did not intervene. If the Ukraine were a member of NATO right now I wonder whether the same things as are happening there would have happened.

It is interesting that many of the new member states from eastern Europe joined NATO before joining the Union. There are interesting lessons for us and the European Union to take on board. Ireland is neutral. It claims its neutrality regularly, although I always point out that our neutrality only started in 1939, for a very good reason. We were not neutral before 1939. I am not suggesting we should become a warlord but what I contend about neutrality is a fact of life.

My last point is on the WTO. When the European Union negotiated at WTO level we found on occasion, to our cost, that the outcome is not necessarily beneficial to our cause. This is why it is always essential to try to ensure strong recognition at EU level of our particular position as an open economy greatly affected by any fluctuations in trade. Within negotiations, there should be a strong influence exerted by this country so as to represent our cause. The European Union itself should be able to achieve that, but it did not always happen in the past. We need to be alert to it.