Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree with many of the Minister of State’s remarks. I fully support the work being done by the Taoiseach, the Minister of State, other Ministers and many inside and outside of the Oireachtas on the Brexit negotiations as they are.

One position with which I have a disagreement is the engagement with Turkey. While I appreciate the position the Minister of State is coming from and advocating, I would have much more sympathy and agreement with the position adopted by the European Parliament. Montenegro, Serbia, Albania and Macedonia are candidate countries for EU membership. If any of those countries had engaged in the behaviour the Turkish Government has shown in response to the attempted coup, negotiations would have long since have ceased. I accept it is a democratically elected government and suffered a horrendous attack which was not permissible in any civilised country. The response of that government to the coup, however, borders on totalitarian behaviour which has to be completely unacceptable to the European Union and everything it stands for. It is a classic case of the European Union - I suppose it is realpolitik- having a behavioural pattern of one rule for larger countries and another for smaller countries. I accept there is a sword of Damocles hanging over the European Union with trying to deal with Turkey and the refugee situation. However, there comes a point when one has to say to a candidate country for European Union membership that, not only does it have the right to defend itself, its institutions and its democracy, it also has an obligation to do it in a way that befits a country that wants to have membership of the European Union. If the country is not prepared to behave in that way, then it should not be negotiating with the EU for membership. That is where I draw the line. On everything else, I was very much in agreement.