Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses' for giving us the time. It is morning, I believe. Most of us were up most of the night. I agree with Ms Walsh's suggestion that we need to have more interaction, maybe on a specific theme rather than on a smorgasbord of issues. At an initial meeting, it is important to have a broad discussion but if we focused on a few specific themes regularly, it would be good.

Enough has been said about asylum and migration so I will comment only briefly. Mr. Kelleher's presentation was very honest but quite bleak. We can all pay lip service to the issue in the hope and expectation that it will not affect us very much. That is particularly true in Ireland. We are probably all guilty to some extent and we need to see how we can fess up in that regard. From a domestic perspective, we need to address the matter, not only with reference to direct provision, in respect of which the Catherine Day report was instanced, but also with reference to transparency in the processing of asylum applications. There are two direct provision centres in my constituency and I do a lot of work on certain applications. It is really frustrating to deal with the International Protection Act, which we enacted relatively recently, in 2015, because of its lack of transparency. It is not the way we should be doing things.

I am interested in future migration and asylum policy. The European Union has used barriers, particularly Turkey, to mitigate the possibility of people reaching European soil. I am interested in hearing the views of the MEPs on the use of Turkey, particularly the consequences for our capacity to make observations about Turkey in terms of the actions in the eastern Mediterranean and the actions of Erdoan in a number of other theatres across the Middle East, in particular, and north Africa.

I have a brief point on the debate on the future of Europe - the second issue. If we were all to be honest, we would contend there is no appetite for fundamental treaty change because we are all fearful of another campaign and all the external issues that get wrapped into any European treaty debate. That is why I am attracted to the notion of expanding the additional treaty structure to its full capacity and determining how we can do that. It might be work that this committee could do. Mr. Andrews mentioned this specifically in his submission and his commentary this morning.

My final question on the future of Europe concerns the issue of climate change. From an economic perspective, it is a centre point of the next investment programme of the European Union. Today, the United States formally withdraws from the Paris Agreement, the Paris accord. In the past hour and a half, I have not looked at the US election results that are in. What would be the impact on Europe of Mr. Trump's re-election - it is a genuine possibility - first with regard to the erosion of our commitments and also with regard to how we can ensure the agreement made by 180 odd countries in Paris will be fully utilised and delivered upon over the relevant period if there is to be such a significant absence from the global collective effort to achieve an essential set of targets?