Niall Ó Donnghaile (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am not a member of the committee but I always appreciate the opportunity to engage with and hear from MEPs because they are operating at the coalface. Unfortunately, it seems we are not going to have the opportunity for an engagement today. I had a number of questions and will put them on record in any event. Perhaps the witnesses can provide answers at the next session.

I also want to refer to Senator Craughwell's points, for the purposes of balance. He cannot admire people for pulling on the green jersey and then whip that jersey off in order to have a pop at those who adhere to a democratic imperative not to take their seats in Westminster. If we are going to talk about democratic imperatives, let us remember that core one. I will not hang on that issue for too long, however.

Ms Anderson referred to a number of the issues I want to raise. Other colleagues have mentioned the issue of the Border. It seems to me that the cast-iron guarantees the Taoiseach may have got from Theresa May are much more precarious than they appeared to be a number of weeks ago. Do the MEPs want to expand on that? Is there merit in asking the Taoiseach, publicly and privately, to do more to ensure that those commitments from the British Government are honoured, particularly in light of what Ms Anderson outlined in respect of the previous form of British negotiation teams when it comes to Ireland?

One of the issues I have consistently raised, as my Seanad colleagues will be well aware, is that there are between 800,000 and 900,000 Irish and, therefore, EU citizens in the North. An Taoiseach has said those citizens will not be abandoned, a position I support fully. When Mr. Guy Verhofstadt was here, he also said that the EU citizenship of those of us who are going to be held hostage in a post-Brexit scenario will not be undermined or weakened in any way. Two questions flow from that. First, should one or more of the two additional MEP seats for Ireland be used to represent Irish citizens in the North, given that we did vote to remain in the EU, as Senator Craughwell said? Second, I have raised on a number of occasions the potential for the Government to put its money where its mouth is in terms of practical infrastructural service investment in the North, through something like the location of an Irish passport office in the Six Counties, particularly in view of the fact that last year alone there were over 82,000 applications for passports from the North. I have also proposed the idea of a citizenship hub, a facility that would be dedicated to supporting citizens in the North to engage with the Government and, indeed, the EU structures regarding their rights and entitlements post-Brexit.

My concerns in the context of PESCO are not nonsense. They are very sincerely and legitimately held. PESCO moves us onto very unsavoury ground and has the potential to impinge upon Ireland's neutral status. For example, while we can be very proud of the Defence Forces operations in the Mediterranean, which have a humanitarian focus, PESCO has the potential to shift us towards a much more militarised and, I believe, anti-immigrant and anti-asylum seeker status. Senator Craughwell is not here any more. He should not simply dismiss the concerns that we and many other human rights, humanitarian and charitable organisations have in respect of PESCO, just because he disagrees. Sin é.