Neale Richmond (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Vice Chairman. I apologise for missing the beginning of the Minister of State's opening address as we had a vote in the Seanad that I could not miss. I am sure it was vitally important.

There are four areas I wish to discuss, and I will be as brief as possible. I want to get a bit more detail on the issues already raised by the Minister of State. With regard to the future of Europe, I very much welcome the initiative being led by the Taoiseach and the Minister of State. I look forward to attending the event next week in Trinity College Dublin. We in Ireland have had quite a lot of experience around citizens' dialogues. We did a lot of it during our last rotating presidency of the European Council, and since then. I look forward to that experience. I wish to repeat comments that I made to the Minister of State, Deputy McEntee, in the Seanad when we debated the future of the EU some weeks ago. It was a really good debate, even if some contributors missed the idea that it was a discussion on the future of the EU and a debate on the white paper; others just used it to talk about various other issues. During that debate I stressed the need for a really strong detailed speech from the Taoiseach to lay out Ireland's vision for the future of Europe, similar to the speech given by President Junker or President Macron. I repeat that call now. I am aware that we may be going through this process but there is a huge opportunity for Ireland to lay out an alternative vision for the future Europe that is not necessarily dominated by an original member state of the European Coal and Steel Community, or a larger member state, but which may have something a bit more palatable for other member states than EU accession countries, and which might allow us to drive the EU in a direction that will make sure we can keep the 27 members that remain and make it palatable and attractive to those who seek to join the EU.

I shall now turn to security and defence, issues which the Minister of State touched upon at the most recent European Council meeting and that was very important. The area of cybercrime, which the Minister of State briefly mentioned, is becoming more relevant and is increasingly in the news.

Will the Minister of State go into more detail on what discussions were held and what plans are in place at European level to deal with the ever increasing role of outside forces and commercial entities in influencing business transactions, elections and behavioural attitudes, especially when online and using social media?

On Monday, Senator Craughwell and I joined about 20 colleagues from a cross-party delegation from the Dáil and the Seanad, organised by Senator Frank Feighan, to visit Westminster. It was a productive engagement and gave us a great insight into the real appetite for interparliamentary discussion in the Brexit debate. I fear that is being left behind. Irish parliamentarians - not necessarily Ministers - need to up their game in ensuring we meet as many other parliamentarians as possible. We had a good meeting with a delegation from Hungary yesterday. Today, I am meeting several French parliamentarians at 5 p.m. We have met with the Danish Brexit committee here. We could do much more, however.

Some of the discussions we held in Westminster were reassuring but some were disappointing. The discussion with the leaders of the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party in Westminster was a great big love-in. Discussions, however, with the UK Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, and the shadow Foreign Secretary were a little more revealing, however. These are areas which will become difficult if we are going to mark sufficient progress in the Brexit discussions when it comes to Ireland before the December European Council meeting.

It comes back again to the customs union. I picked up an air of a veiled threat from the Foreign Secretary that if they do not get what they want, there are forces within the British Cabinet - which is falling apart everyday - who are quite willing to pull plug on this process. The hard Brexit no-deal scenario is something about which we should be concerned. Will the Minister of State give us more detail about the proposals for the customs union? The Taoiseach made reasonable proposals and the British Labour Party has tweaked its position on this. However, it is not a position of the British Government. It is not the British Opposition which is in discussions with Michel Barnier, however.

The Taoiseach mentioned he would favour a five-year transition period. What is the exact Irish aim on this? Hopefully, it is not too premature to go into the phase 2 priority. The Minister of State referred to sectorial and trading interests. Will she give more detail on this? I raised the urgent priority, well before the March 2019 phase 2 discussions, for an EU-US-UK open skies agreement with the European Commissioner for Transport, Violeta Bulc, and Brian Hayes, MEP.

In recent weeks, Ireland has applied to be observers of the Nordic Council and La Francophonie, Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. These are welcome but belated endeavours. There are other councils such as the Arctic Council to which we should apply. Obviously, I am a long-time supporter of re-joining the British Commonwealth, as popular as that seems to be with 98% of the rest of Oireachtas Members. This is important and gives us opportunities to strengthen existing alliances. Will the Minister of State give an update from a European Council perspective on the work being achieved and our position in Ireland as a leading member in an EU of 27, after March 2019? Who will be our obvious allies? Once the UK leaves the EU, our strongest and oldest ally in it is gone. We joined the European Economic Community with the UK. France is our next nearest neighbour. We have good ties with France when it comes to the Common Agricultural Policy, energy security, building the interconnector. We also have good ties with the Benelux and Nordic countries. Will the Minister of State give more detail on how the work on strengthening and developing alliances is going?