Mr. Nicolas Schmit:

I thank the members for their questions and comments. I enjoy very much being back in Ireland and in Dublin.

On the issue of the crisis and this war, we fully agree that what is happening in Ukraine is a catastrophe and something unacceptable. It is a profound change in our international system, especially in Europe but also globally in the international system. The positive side of that, if we can say that, is that probably Mr. Putin miscalculated one thing. He thought that he could divide Europe inside and he could divide Europe from the US. The positive thing is that we are now closer allies to the US. I know the special situation of Ireland in that context with regard to NATO and so forth, but I am giving the broad picture. We are closer than ever to the US and we have shown the highest degree of solidarity inside the Union. We really move together. I always say this. There are some people who say that the founding of the first European community was based on steel. Ireland was not yet part of that; it was steel and Ireland had no steel. It was steel and coal. It was not Schuman and all the fathers of Europe, but it was Stalin because people feared the invasion and the policies of Stalin. In a way, what Putin is doing is the same thing because we have understood that our collective response and our solidarity are the right response to a new threat that we had undervalued and underestimated. This is a very important effect of this crisis.

It is clear that all that has an impact also on my portfolio. Some say that now we have to invest much more in defence and the like, and that this has to be transferred from somewhere. It is the choice between butter and cannons. What is important, and we have to reflect on it, is, first, that what Putin is playing on is not just dividing European countries but also European societies. He tried it by funding certain parties. What Stalin made with the communists, he makes with other political families. I will not go into this but the members know that very well. It is dividing our societies and undermining the cohesion of our societies. The cohesion of our societies is key, especially in times that are much more insecure and uncertain. This depends certainly on economic strength but also on social resilience. We have taken the lessons from the Covid crisis and we have to take the lesson of this crisis. Social should not now be considered a second priority. We still have to invest in social, first in education and more equality. That comes to the Deputy's question, which is a very good example of what has to be done on social and those who are still excluded in our societies. We have broad groups of people who are not taking part as they should in the social developments.

On the other impacts, certainly on prices, we are in a difficult period. Even before the attacks and the aggression, we had inflationary tendencies after Covid. We all expected these to be relatively temporary, but now there is a risk that they will last. Not everybody, but many of us experienced the oil shock in the 1970s. Well, we have something like the oil shock in the 1970s. Our economies have changed but, nevertheless, we still have a high dependency on oil and gas from some countries and especially from Russia, so there will be an economic impact. There will also be a social impact through the increase in prices. I saw that the Irish Government has already taken some measures to mitigate the social impact of this. This is an important issue and I believe we have to invest a lot in the coming years.

I was asked about the Stability and Growth Pact. The priority for different reasons - climate reasons, organisation of our economies reasons and energy dependency reasons - is huge amounts of investment, certainly private but also public.

Not everything can be done on the private side. We have also to increase public investment in infrastructure. Public investment in renewable energy, for instance, is important to lower the dependency in that sense.

On agriculture, an important topic in Ireland, there was a ministerial meeting a few days ago. We have a problem of grain prices going up, which has an impact on living costs but also for farmers. Much animal feed is imported, partly also through Russia or Ukraine, and this has an impact on costs for farmers. This means that the cost of meat and other food is increasing. This is a tricky issue of how we try to keep inflation down. As to whether we can do it only by means of monetary policy, I am not convinced. It is another tricky issue. Certainly, we have to take these inflationary tendencies seriously.

On immigration, we have to be in full solidarity with the Ukrainian people. Hundreds of thousands of people who had housing, who had everything and who had jobs in Ukraine have been pushed out. Their lives have been destroyed. There is their children's future to consider. We have to show absolute solidarity. I have exactly the same view. I must say also that this is a change because we had an immigration crisis not so long ago. This time it is different, perhaps because it is in Europe. We have to be in full solidarity, which is also a cost.

We have to support those countries that are on the front line - we have to call it that. We have to support them. We will finalise next week the mobilisation of European funds to support these countries but also in order to support the families, including many women and children, because the men are fighting in Ukraine. We can see that they might become workers. Certainly, some will. We have to encourage them. Most of them have in mind to go back home but nobody knows when and under which conditions they will be able to do that.

On the poor, the disabled, etc., we have a programme in disability, especially a strategy for creating equality. Accessibility is one issue. There is still a lot to do. We have to encourage companies to reduce their prejudices against disabled people. We have to allow disabled people to get better training and better skills. If we have a shortage on the labour market, there are many people who want to work. We have to give them the possibility to work. We will come up with a proposal on how to better integrate disabled people in our labour market.

Migrants are somewhat in the same situation. It is not wise to leave them outside the labour market for months and years and then say that they are not integrating in our society. How could they integrate because they cannot work? Now there is a new picture. We should skill them. We should reskill them. We should use their will in most cases to be part of the society and also the labour market.

I will finish now. There were a lot of questions. On Roma, we have a strategy. I note there is also a community here in this country.

On remote working, I have no answer yet to this question Senator Ahearn asked but it is a real question. Here, we have to start a reflection at European level because this is a real European subject but I cannot give the Senator an answer yet. We have really to start deal with this issue.