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

I apologise for my absence at the outset of the meeting but I was obliged to speak in the Chamber. While I am working on bilocation as best I can, it does not always work.

I agree entirely with the paper produced by the witnesses. If anything, they under-emphasise the importance of the issues facing Europe, the United Kingdom and Ireland in the event of a British exit. There a number of reasons, including geopolitical reasons that generally are accepted and recognisable from the outset. It also gives a peculiar and confusing message to the wider world and the global economy. In so far as possible, a Single Market has been established and the benefits accruing to all member states, and to smaller member states in particular, from having access to a Single Market are known. While anyone can have individual trade agreements with other small countries and larger countries, there has always been a tendency whereby the smaller operators do not necessarily have the greatest of influence in such company.

As a result of all this, it is utterly ridiculous to find ourselves in a Europe that now is looking around at alternatives. I do not rule out the possibility of all this happening. I do not dismiss it at all and believe it could happen. What one should remember is that over the centuries, the people of Europe have done some very strange things and have taken some very strange decisions, usually culminating in a war, at regular intervals throughout history. As for the tendency for this to happen again, while people will tell one this cannot and will not happen again, it can and as sure as Murphy's Law prevails, it will. This is because once we begin to fragment and go in opposite directions, the full implications of what is likely to happen will become known to everybody. It must be realised that such possibilities exist at this point in the debate as there will be no point in realising it afterwards when it will be too late.

I sincerely hope it does not happen for the sake of this country, Northern Ireland, the UK and the European Union. It would be like Texas seceding from the United States. I know they spoke about that a long time ago, as did other states, but it was deemed not the right thing to do. They fought a civil war over it, which was not the right thing to do either. Other issues were involved.

We are about to achieve the biggest single trading block of 500 million people in a single market, and it has potential to grow even further. Somebody has had the brainy idea of deciding to go back to the old ways with a loose arrangement of trade agreements which would be better for one or the other as the occasion arises, but I do not accept this concept. I cannot understand how anybody can justify it.

With regard to negotiations between the UK and the European Union that may take place, there is a limit to what we can do as a third party and this has been pointed out by other speakers. Interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign state does not go down too well at the best of times in any event. We do not like it ourselves.