Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Look at the trade union movement. During my period as the president of my union before I came to the Seanad, I recall women having to resign because we could not have family-friendly meetings. I would like to see some serious action in the context of social dialogue. What the Department is doing with the meetings throughout the country on the future of Europe is a good start. We need to build on that.

Permanent structured co-operation, PESCO, is being misrepresented in every corner of Ireland. I am committed to Ireland's non-military alignment. Ireland is not a neutral country. It never was neutral. Nowhere in the Constitution will one find a reference to neutrality. We are militarily non-aligned and there is a vast difference between the two. We need to get the message out there. Government needs to get the message out there that PESCO will allow us to start seriously challenge threats to cybersecurity and the movement of what I call "soft terrorism" across Europe.

We need greater engagement on security. I would prefer if people, when speaking about PESCO, discussed security rather than defence. Defence in Ireland tends to conjure up the notion of uniforms, boots, guns and soldiers. Security, on the other hand, relates more to policing our country. With PESCO, we can tap into resources a little open economy could not possibly expect to manage otherwise.

Recently, at the Brexit conference in Killarney, the issue of the transitional period was addressed by lawyers from the UK and Ireland. These people are distinguished legal brains. It was their view that the transitional period could not be less than five years and was more likely to be closer to ten. Deputy Donnelly will probably have more to say about that than me. He may agree that they were saying ten years made more sense for a transitional period. That we can turn off the lights on the European Union in March next year and move to the next stage is something they do not envisage.