Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)

I will comment rather than ask specific questions. First and foremost, His Excellency is very welcome and I thank him for his time, and likewise Ms Christensen.

I note the ambassador’s point that Denmark will be an honest broker. I welcome that. Over 50 years, Ireland and Denmark have been walking the EU path together, the odd time stumbling, but very much taking the ups and the downs. I welcome the fact that is the approach that Denmark will take. As the ambassador said, that has not always been the case.

In respect of Mr. Draghi's report, I agree that it paints a very bleak picture. As I mentioned last week or the week before, never before has the "old Continent" been such an apt name for Europe. We need to be far quicker in how we process things. We talk about streamlining, but we have been talking about that for at least ten years and our processes have become more and more complicated. The more we talked about it, the more complicated things became. The ambassador probably mentioned, pardon the pun, a beer company that spoke about the extra costs with 20 people to do the same job as before. I would like some ideas on how that is going to happen because we talk a lot but we do not really produce a lot when it comes to that.

All my colleagues mentioned Ireland’s position on Gaza. We have been unequivocal in calling out genocide and it is, without a shadow of a doubt, genocide. We also get the sensation and the feeling that Ireland is very lonely out in Europe at the moment. We are not receiving the support we would have expected considering the conditions, growing tensions and acts of violence in Gaza. In the ambassador’s opinion, what will it take to bring Europe to a unanimous position to ensure that this stops? The Tánaiste and Taoiseach are in the Dáil every week reiterating and defending the fact that Ireland believes in the two-state system. We call out the genocide for what it is, but we do not really see anybody else in Europe truly having our back. I urge everyone in this room to come out and help Ireland to achieve that unanimity within Europe.