Mr. Matt Carthy:

I thank members of the joint committee for hosting and facilitating this engagement. It is another useful opportunity for us to share our views.

I hope Phil Hogan will be a success in his new commissionership role. As Seán Kelly said, I do not see much opposition in the European Parliament to his appointment. I personally hope he will succeed, but I do not believe he will as he has not succeeded in any political role he has ever had before. He was a disaster as a Minister and failed miserably as European agriculture Commissioner. His final act in that role was to endorse the Mercosur trade deal which was a kick in the teeth for Irish farmers, the environment and the domestic economy. It was done for the sole purpose that he did not want much opposition at European level to him taking on the trade commissionership. Time will tell and I hope I will be proved wrong. It is important that we have a strong Commissioner and it would have been my wish for the Government to appoint somebody with a track record who would have given confidence.

There are significant debates occurring all at once. The EU trade agenda is the subject of one such debate. I get the sense that the prevailing political opinion in Dublin is that free trade has been good for Ireland and that, therefore, all free trade deals are good. I accept that free trade has been good for Ireland and that we need an open economy with trade agreements. However, I do not agree with the premise that all trade agreements are good. I do not believe the Mercosur trade deal is a good one for Ireland. I am also concerned about the New Zealand trade deal. What the beef sector will lose in Mercosur, the dairy sector will lose in the New Zealand trade deal. I disagree with the proposition of investor-state dispute courts which will allow foreign corporations to sue national governments for implementing democratic decisions if they believe their profits have been impacted on. This has been incorporated into most of the EU trade deals being negotiated.

There will be a big battle over the EU budget. This is the crux of Senator Craughwells’s point and where our opinions diverge. There is an argument about whether we are on the road to having a European army. Oireachtas Members and others across Europe, including the Commissioners responsible, have cited permanent structured co-operation, PESCO, and the European Defence Fund as pivotal building blocks for a European army. That is their language, not mine, and they celebrate that fact, which is regrettable. The proposal made by the European Commission is that Ireland will pay hundreds of millions of euro extra into the European budget. In return, we will get less back under important programmes such as the CAP, in cohesion funding and other vital funding streams, for which EU membership is so valued. Instead, the Commission is proposing that we open up a new budget line of €13 billion for a European Defence Fund. Ironically, that amount corresponds to what the British Government contributes to the European Union. This is a militarisation agenda which does not have the support of people across Europe or the Irish people. It is one of the mechanisms by which we see growth in the far right and other xenophobic elements. This is a crucial time in terms of the direction the European Union will take. If it wants the support of peoples across Europe, rather pursuing an expensive vanity exercise which will contribute nothing to peace and more to conflict, we need to change tack. The Irish people, through their representatives, should be leading the charge in that regard.

CAP reform has fallen slightly off the agenda, but it will be crucial. We have to protect and increase the budget, but this will proving difficult considering that our Commissioner signed off on a budget which will see a 15% cut in real terms in CAP funding. For several weeks we have seen farmers protesting at beef factory gates because they have reached breaking point. While it is welcome that the protests have been lifted, there is an onus to use all mechanisms to address the inequalities in our farming model. They will be addressed partly through reform of the CAP. I look forward to working with our colleagues in Dublin to ensure we will have a strong voice in calling for a redistribution model for the CAP that will ensure family farms that need most support receive an increased contribution under the CAP which, in turn, will allow them to continue providing the most sustainable agrifood products.

Much has been said about Brexit. What we saw happen today was another outworking of the dysfunctionality of the Westminster system.

Given that the British Government is being taken to court and losing, with the court essentially describing its actions as unlawful, one can see why more and more people in Ireland are turning their backs on Westminster. We have a big job of work to do. We have been working here in the EU with everybody who will work with us to try to minimise the damage Brexit presents.

On Senator Craughwell's question, I am astounded that somebody would ask what is the difference between the border of Finland with another country and the border that partitions our country. That is the fundamental difference. The Border in Ireland is an artificial border that was put in place for political purposes and has been nothing but a cause of grief since being implemented. The Border and partition has cost Ireland economically, politically and socially. It has cost us countless lives as a result of the conflict and, therefore, the mechanisms that were put in place to undo the damage of partition and undo the impact of the Border were twofold. These are the Good Friday Agreement and the rights that were provided within it, especially the right of the people in the North to identify themselves as Irish citizens if that was their choice. This means there is a responsibility on Oireachtas Members to protect the rights of those citizens. Coupled with that was the membership of the Single Market and the customs union, which meant the physical manifestations of the Border could be undone.

I am from County Monaghan and my nearest county is Armagh. To suggest to me or to anyone in the community where I live that we would just have to accept checks or regulations between Monaghan and Armagh is the equivalent of someone saying that the Chairman should have to do the same between counties Kerry and Cork. It would not be tolerated in Munster, and it should not be in Ulster. I believe we should be strong in that position. If the British Government or the EU are insistent that some checks or hardening of the Border takes place, there will be an onus on us to consider constitutional avenues to ensure this does not happen. Those constitutional avenues are available within the Good Friday Agreement. There is an onus on all of us to start having the conversation in event that we need to use those avenues to undo the damage of Brexit in our country so that the preparatory work is done and we will have had the conversation around the constitutional, economic and political frameworks of a united Ireland, the transitional arrangements, and what all of the outworkings would look like. There is an onus and responsibility on all of us to have those conversations now so that we do not make the same mistakes as the Brexiteers and end up having a referendum with nobody knowing what happens next the day after the referendum. We want to make sure that does not happen, but for us to be able to that we must collectively have those big conversations.