Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank both gentleman for the stimulating and interesting papers that will help our general discussions. I wish to ask four questions, if I may. As for the witnesses' last response, I do not think Ireland is a player in terms of determining what the outcome is. As we are commentators to it, my first question is for both witnesses, particularly Professor Tonra, who has really underscored the notion that something very fundamental has happened. Professor Tonra used the word "earthquake" in terms of the paradigm shift and talked about the EU's previous existence in a false paradise. Is it then his contention that Ireland is still in that false paradise zone? I would be interested to hear both the witnesses' views in terms of the impact they have spelled out, because we all listen at COSAC and other meetings about a very significant shift towards military industrial capacity within the European Union, and how Ireland might be affected by that, including in dual use in the technology we have and so on and how that might impact on us if we are excluded from that. On the comment made by Professor Tonra that there is little or no political enthusiasm for a change in our defence pose, I was interested in hearing Deputy Ó Murchú as a Sinn Féin representative talking about how until it happens, and if there is actually a real attack on an EU member state, we would have to think about that again. That is an interesting perspective.

My second question is the role of the UK in all of this. As a non-member of the EU now, how do our guests see them being involved in this security commonality within the EU? My third question concerns the attitude on the concept of European defence held by the eastern EU member states. It is very clear from all of the ambassadors we have had before the committee that they are frightened by the prospect of an overt decoupling of Europe from the American shield. Even the prospect of Mr. Trump does not seem to dislodge them from that view and I would be interested in the witnesses' take on that and how that might pan out. My fourth and final question is on the witnesses' discussion of the paradigm shift involving enormous expenditure of money, that there is no legal capacity to spend on defence within the treaties currently, and Commissioner Breton's view that we would float a bond. We had, however, the President of the European Court of Auditors give stark and alarming evidence of the degree of debt that the European Union, post Covid, has already amounted and attached to itself. I wonder - I say this with the scars of experience in terms of debt - how Germany in particular is currently viewing the notion that we would pile debt on the European Union member states to address the defence issues discussed..