Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Like the Chairman, I welcome the ambassador and wish him and his country well during the Presidency. We are familiar with each other from having been on the European circuit over the years. We have even been known to cross one another's paths on the football circuit from time to time. All of the times in Europe have been trying times, none more so than the present time. The issues the ambassador has raised are testing but Brexit is the big one because Europe cannot be the same again after Brexit. We will never know what it will be like in the future. We hear people say they want to go back to the good old days. It is not clear which of the good old days are being referred to but I presume it is the first half of the 20th century. I am not certain to which part of those good old days we want to go back. When I say "we", some other countries in Europe, not necessarily only the British, have also expressed thoughts along those lines.

We in this country are very committed to the European Union. The most recent opinion poll showed 92% of Irish people were committed to the EU, which is the highest or second highest in the European Union. The EU is of great importance to smaller countries, which never really emerged from the economic shadows until the European Union became a reality. The secret of their success is that in the EU they became independent and protected and there were no trade barriers or other barriers. There are some people in Europe who want closer co-operation and some people who want less co-operation. My question, in circumstances in which we set out to pursue the views of each individual state on the extent to which they want to be able to determine future policy in Europe, is how we are to get 27 member states to have a uniform opinion. That is a contradictory and impossible objective.

Be that as it may, there are considerable grounds for believing we have been successful. As the ambassador knows, we have a peace process in Northern Ireland, which continues to be helped by the European Union. It came at the end of 30 years of guerilla warfare, during which time many thousands of lives were lost and great division occurred on the island of Ireland. These generally faded away into insignificance as the island became one economic entity. Taxation operated in terms of a single economy from the point of view of being part of the European Union and no border existed. This has become a challenge for us insofar as a return to the old days would have a serious and negative economic impact on the country. This is one of the issues on which Ireland has taken a very strong line with respect to Brexit and will continue to do so. I compliment the European institutions, Mr. Michel Barnier and all of those involved in the Brexit negotiations on the manner in which they have conducted those negotiations on behalf of the European Union.

We have no antipathy towards the United Kingdom. The UK took the decision to leave the European Union. Sadly, some of the information made available to British people before they made that decision was inaccurate. Some of the people who conveyed those inaccuracies to the public had been committed to undermining the European Union during their entire time in the European Parliament. We are now in a position in which we have to live with whatever decisions are made. We will make the best of this and continue to make a strong contribution to the European Union and its ideals.

I remind people of the vision of Europe held by the founding fathers - Schuman, Adenauer, Monnet and others. In the Europe they envisaged at that time they saw an alternative to the chaos and destruction of the first 50 years of the 20th century. They were right and will be proven to be right. As I said the other day, the European Union was the biggest single peace process the world has ever known. Some 550 million people are involved in a commitment to each other, to peace and to prosperity. It is a commitment never known before in the history of Europe. We have done very well. The challenge for the future is to continue on the route or path laid down by Europe's founding fathers. It is up to ourselves. If we want to nitpick and go back to where we were, we know where that will lead. History has repeated itself many times and unfortunately will continue to do so.

I hope that, under the guidance of the Austrian Presidency, we will progress and perhaps the UK will have second thoughts. Perhaps at some stage in the not too distant future the UK will decide Brexit was not a good idea and will revisit the issue. That would be the best outcome. The worst outcome would be a harsh Brexit that leads to a trade war in which countries, big and small, and their populations suffer. Employment would also suffer and economies would suffer to such an extent that it would be patently obvious to all that the decisions made by some people were not in the interests of the people.

We keep in mind the need for enlargement of the European Union. The western Balkans come to mind. The area has always been one of contention in the past for one reason or another. We must keep that in mind and we must be supportive of the thrust of European unity for as long as it takes.

I was glad the ambassador brought up the issue of digital taxation because I also have a view on it. I do not disagree with him. Taxation should occur in the countries in which the profit is made, not in some other country. I resent that Ireland is deemed to be liable for the collection of taxation for the countries in which the profit was made. That is a matter for the individual member states. While it is being approached by the European Union at the moment under the heading of state aid, that is tendentious as far as we are concerned. The theory that somebody will give us €19 billion or €13 billion of a windfall is grand thinking, but that is as far as it goes. It is like the Tobin tax. It is great if everybody does it, but if one country decides on its own to have a capital transaction tax or something like that, nobody will transact any capital in that country if other countries are free of that particular entrapment.

I wish Austria well in the course of its Presidency of the Council. I hope that the end of this year will see a better outcome for Brexit than appears will be the case at present. We hope Austria's influence in the centre of Europe will be sufficient to convince all of our colleagues that together we stand and divided we fall.