Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Commissioner, Mr. Moscovici, to our committee. I will start by making a political point.

As a former Member of Parliament and a former Minister, the Commissioner will take a reading from this meeting of the Irish Parliament's Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure, and Taoiseach today. The mood thus far is one of a degree of scepticism about this proposal because too many questions are left unanswered on how it will affect our ability, for instance, to attract foreign and direct investment. We take the Commissioner's intervention in good faith and the proposal is that there would be a 1.2% rise in growth across the European Union and €90 billion in extra investments.

If we are inhabiting a political space in which there is the rise of the extreme right and of populism, there is a school of thought that would say that if there is a proposal that seeks to undermine sovereignty, or even the perception of sovereignty - I note the Commissioner's colleague is nodding her head - and there is a perception of a diminution of Ireland's ability to maintain its sovereignty as it relates to taxation measures, I would suggest it is ill-timed.The focus of the Commission's agenda or policy outcomes should not be to examine the consolidated tax base but to examine the Stability and Growth Pact. If a country like Ireland has the sword of Damocles in terms of Brexit handing over it, where there is a degree of uncertainty and nobody can definitively answer questions from a macro-economic point of view on how Brexit will affect small countries like Ireland because the negotiations de factohave not been concluded, and if there is a proposal on top of that which creates the perception that Irish people's sovereignty as it relates to their tax affairs is undermined in any way, then the Commission is adding to a degree of euroscepticism, notwithstanding the EUROSTAT poll numbers on Ireland's relationship with the European Union. It should be concentrating on matters such as the Stability and Growth Pact instead. If we consider rules such as the excessive deficit procedure, the balanced budget rule and the six pack, what Europe needs if we are to have a 1.2% rise in growth is a greater degree of flexibility with respect to the Stability and Growth Pact as it relates to countries like Ireland, which is currently very constrained and is seeking changes to the rules to ensure that it can start making investments in infrastructure and the capital investments that will add to and fuel growth in the economy.

We are not a eurosceptic country. I inhabit the centre left. My group within the European Parliament has put forward proposals for a relaxation of Stability and Growth Pact rules. We want to see growth happening. If those of us who champion the EU want to see it sustained against the rising euroscepticism and increasing populism that we see, we have to see reforms. I put it to the Commissioner that reforms come in allowing for greater flexibility with respect to the Stability and Growth Pact. That is my main point. I hope that as a former Member of Parliament and a former Minister, the Commissioner will be able to give us some insight from that perspective. He will have to wear his Commissioner hat at the same time but I put it to him that growth in Europe is predicated on a greater relaxation of the Stability and Growth Pact rules.