Eric Byrne (Dublin South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the delegates for their presentation. As colleagues noted, we have debated this issue in great depth here at the committee. The collective conclusion of those debates was that Ireland will suffer terribly if the UK decides to pull out of Europe. We also discovered from our academic and financial advisers that Britain, equally, would suffer terribly. It is saddening that the UK is considering a withdrawal from the EU at a time of great crisis not just in Europe but throughout the world. There is a greater case to be made for unity as against individual nations taking sovereignty to the degree to which Britain is taking it.

The document Prime Minister Cameron gave to Mr. Tusk is very valuable because it tells us the issues that are of most interest to the UK. We have no problem with some of them, such as measures to combat fraud, sham marriages and other peripheral stuff. I foresee no problem with negotiations on those proposals. However, we have a fundamental problem with the proposals the UK is making in regard to welfare. I would argue strongly that Ireland's welfare system is superior to that of the UK but there is no argument being made here - certainly no argument based on fact - that welfare is the attraction for people coming to our country. To dismiss the 300,000 migrants coming to Britain as welfare tourists is fundamentally wrong. The UK will have to explain to Europe and the world how it proposes to discriminate against those who might be deemed to be welfare migrants as opposed to the doctors, architects, lawyers and so on it wishes to welcome. How will that differentiation be managed?

The argument for controlling the movement of EU citizens between member states requires significant elaboration. One might understand the desire to control the numbers coming in from outside the Union but when it comes to internal movement, the UK is on very dodgy ground.