Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome everyone here today. It is great to see all the MEPs representing all the parts of the island. On the relationship between the national Parliament and the European Parliament and where all this is ending, in the past year or so Brexit has focused people's attention on the growth of a very right wing ideology in many parts of Europe. In many places that ideology is very racist and xenophobic and is throwing up all the things with which we have serious issues. Its growth is based on dissatisfaction among many people in many member states, particularly on the periphery, regarding their economic circumstances, where they see Europe going, and how they consider the European structures as something that are distant from them and not something with which it is easy to engage. I welcome what Ms Harkin said and that there are efforts being made in that regard.

The impression among many people is that Europe is an elite club and not something that ordinary people have either access to or a good relationship with. If we are really serious about doing something around Brexit and all the issues which flow from it, we need to look at that seriously. It is not only the responsibility of the people elected to the European Parliament, but also to the people elected to all the other parliaments, to try to ensure the direction in which all this is going is arrested and brought back so that people will once again feel that the European institutions are for them. Would the witnesses agree that we need to have a greater level of accountability, transparency and supervision of all the European policies that flow to places like this committee from Europe? We regularly have to scrutinise various directives and information that come from Europe and the nub of the issue is the attempt, particularly by France and Germany and the bigger countries who they seem to come together, do deals on the future of Europe and then dictate to other countries what will happen. I would like the MEPs' views on this aspect.