Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for their presentations, which were helpful. It is always useful for us to reflect on the opinions of people such as the witnesses who take a broader view than those on this committee of the national Parliament, but it appears that citizens across Europe are disengaging from the European project. We all have a view on the reason that is happening but at a time of crisis, when they see a failure on the part of the institutions to react in a manner they believe benefits them, they tend to withdraw and take a more nationalistic view, which clearly has happened.

Ms Lynch spoke about the Council and the Commission being seen as the institutions that dealt largely with the crisis when, in effect, a more bilateral approach appeared to deal with it - too much between France and Germany. Despite the democratic deficit, to use that great phrase, in which the institutions operate, we ended up having this bilateral arrangement where summits were held on a weekly basis in France and Germany, undermining the institutions in which people had built some trust. It is clear they were not in a position to deal with the crisis, and they did not have their own legal framework. Part of the reason for that had to do with the way the euro project came about without the appropriate mechanisms to deal with the crisis.

It is not surprising that citizens across Europe are becoming more eurosceptic and nationalistic in their outlook because the project people believed in, and it is happening here, was not fit for purpose; it is still not fit for purpose. Much of it is lost because people talk in generalities on occasion but we have some concrete examples now of where the Irish State is looking to Europe regarding the retrospective recapitalisation of the pillar banks. Two years ago a decision was taken at a Council meeting, and the matter is still dragging on. This committee has gone into the minutiae of that across all political parties. It is about banking union and having the appropriate resolution in the event of banks failing again, but it is dragging on and there is no determinate point at which we can say we will resolve that. We get soundings from various officials to the effect that is unlikely or it might not happen, but that further erodes the confidence of citizens in Ireland who seek some type of outcome. They believed a decision had been taken that was positive for Ireland yet it seems to have petered out and withered on the vine, so to speak. The centre of Europe has not been its own best advocate in that regard.

We can even look to the efforts made in Lisbon to try to do away with the democratic deficit and allow more input from citizens on decisions being taken. In terms of the decision on the next Commission President, everybody expected that the Council would be mindful of the results of the Parliament. It is a classic fudge, but the fudge has to be dealt with at some point and we are now dealing with the fallout from that. This wrangling is going on now when it was sold at the time to citizens that if they follow this route the issue they have had about the Commission will be resolved because it will be based on some type of electoral legitimacy and will have an albeit indirect connection to the citizen. However, member states that largely bought into the notion of the collegial way of doing business are now saying that is not what the citizens decided, and they tried to play fast and loose with the rules that were established. It is the institutions themselves and the member states, largely through the Council, that undermine citizens' impression of what should and could happen because they return to secular or national interests, and we have a way to go to get the Council to think more collectively in the best interests of all member states rather than looking at its narrow, nationalistic benefits. At some point we must decide who is in or out.

There is a debate about whether the United Kingdom will remain in the EU. It is vitally important for Ireland that it remains in the European Union but the associate membership it has created for itself is damaging because other member states then begin to wonder if they have more to gain by dislocating themselves somewhat from the EU. It is not surprising that citizens are showing a greater level of euroscepticism when, ultimately, the politicians and the leadership in Europe is disengaging more and not engaging in a proactive way that benefits everybody rather than their own national interests. That is a long-winded way of making my point.