Neale Richmond (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman. I am delighted to be asked to say a few words. Having spent two very happy years on the European Committee of the Regions and the ECON and CIVEX commissions, I hold my time there in very fond stead. I was disappointed that I spent only two years there but I got the call up for the Seanad. I am delighted Councillor Murphy took my place on the European Committee of the Regions. He is also leader of the Irish delegation. He is as brilliant as he says he is at all of his meetings.

I wish to make a few points and ask a few questions. Brexit is bad and there is no such thing as a good Brexit. Whatever Brexit comes out in March 2019, it will be bad for everyone in the European Union, including the United Kingdom. How bad it will be we do not know. Every time we meet business and community leaders it is very hard to tell them what to prepare for because we do not know what will happen. We are in the middle of a negotiation, and we are probably in the most fraught part at this stage ahead of the June European Council meeting.

One of the things we say constantly here and which perhaps feeds into some of the work the witnesses are doing is "Plan for the worst and hope for the best". It is going to be bad for everyone, but I disagree respectfully with the President in the following sense; it is absolutely going to be worst for Ireland. Ireland will be impacted more than any other region in the European Union, including most of the United Kingdom. The region in Ireland which will suffer the greatest impact is the Border region, which the witnesses are going to visit tomorrow. It is crucial to state this. I know the President's committee put it in its recent report. I was very disappointed I was unable to attend the plenary session in December, notwithstanding the kind invitation. Some Members of the Houses thought we might have a general election then but thankfully cool heads prevailed and we did not.

I have to state the following without ambiguity; any form of border, in particular a hard one, will result in a return to violence. It is not a question of "maybe" or "could" but of "will". Dissident paramilitaries on both sides of the great political divide will use it as an opportunity and it will drive an emotional divide between the communities. This is not my opinion as a politician, it is the stated opinion of George Mitchell, the person who negotiated the Good Friday Agreement, and of both police forces on this island. The witnesses are going to the Border tomorrow. If they leave Ireland with one message, that should be the one they take to heart. I ask them to bring it back to their member states and the committee and to make it a focus of their ongoing good work. We hope option A will be achieved to provide for a deep and meaningful customs and trading relationship between the United Kingdom and the European Union as a whole. Hopefully, that can deliver the least bad option for Ireland, the EU and the UK.

I have three questions which are tied to the foregoing. What is the mood of the British members of the Committee of the Regions? During my time there and as Councillor Murphy will recall, the EPB did not have any British members. I spent two years in advance of the Brexit referendum talking about it within EPB group meetings. The other members looked to myself and another former member, Senator Maria Byrne, to provide a view on the British opinion. We found that a lot of British members in other groups were very reluctant about Brexit. Bar one or two independents, they did not want it to happen. They knew from working in the Committee of the Regions and from being involved in European regional policy of the benefits the European project presented for their regions across the United Kingdom. I think in particular of the Scottish islands, the more impoverished parts of south-west Wales and other parts of the United Kingdom outside England, as well as of Northern Ireland. What have the British members fed into the committee's debates and reports? Is there a huge division?

Brexit has forced us to think more widely about the future of the European project. Under the Chairman, our committee has just concluded a body of work on the future of Europe debate and the six key parts of the White Paper set out by President Juncker. I would like to hear briefly what the Committee of the Regions has fed into the future of Europe debate. Europe's great failing and one of my major bugbears when it comes to discussing the European project is the EU's inability to sell itself and to get the message out that what it is doing is actually really good. The laws produced at European level benefit people. What Europe is unfortunately brilliant at doing is telling citizens across the member states how they can give out about the European Union and critique it. The EU should be telling people that, while they might have a slight issue with a directive or the timetable for some measure, the euro is a good thing and the fact that we have had peace on our Continent for the longest period in history is a great thing. The fact that we can work, live and study in each other's countries is a really good thing. The fact that one can eat an Irish steak in Croatia in the knowledge that it is not full of hormones and pesticides is a really good thing. The fact that the air in our cities is cleaner is an amazing thing. We do not hear that enough from the European Commission, the European Council, the European Parliament or, respectfully, from the Committee of the Regions and the ESC. It is something we must look at in the context of our engagement with the European project.