Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

No, it is not on at 10.30 a.m. Members can log on to see the launch. They can also encourage their community groups which would be in a position to look for European funding to log on to this. They have a big job to do and we want them to do it well. We want to ensure that European Union funding reaches communities. That is another example of European engagement.

We will have legitimate debates on state intervention. The European Union has always been neutral on whether something is publicly or privately owned. Traditionally, European Union policy in the treaties has been not to give an unfair advantage to one company over another as that generally distorts the market and does not work well. These are the types of policy that failed in the 1970s in Britain where it picked out particular companies. Those rules have been eased off a bit in the context of the pandemic, obviously. If a no-deal Brexit is as disastrous as we fear, we will also be looking for further easing of them to deal with the emerging situation.

Deputy Ó Murchú is correct. There has been a sea change at European and global level in this regard. More than ten years ago, we had the banking crisis. The priority was to save the banks. To be honest, that was handed down. It was a terrible policy which many countries were forced to adopt. That has changed, however. The genuine effort now seems to be to protect the citizen. We are giving pandemic unemployment payments, which are significantly greater than the regular dole. We are spending as much as we possibly can with the biggest budget ever. That is the same in many European countries as well. The European Union is there at the forefront trying to get people's health protected through vaccine contracts. There has been a sea change for the better and those lessons have been learned. We have to be constantly on our guard as well, however. That is where citizen engagement comes in.

Of course there are items of government decision-making that people criticise and are wrong. This is a pandemic which none of us alive have experienced before. Generally speaking, European governments have reacted really well. The European Union was probably a little bit slow off the mark at the start of pandemic. Again, however, faced with this crisis, travel stopped immediately and people were not able to get together. There were difficulties but the European Union has got things together and is actually providing a really effective response on behalf of all of us. Long may that continue. The public will engage with that as these are real policies that make real differences in their daily lives.