Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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-----appropriate to mean a set of economic governance procedures that would be used to overview how member states operate their economies and national budgets? I have no doubt during my tenure in office I will get sucked into using the same language. At the beginning of my opening statement, I spoke about banning the use of the word "institution" and then used it throughout my contribution. I welcome the fact that many members spoke about outputs and what comes out of Europe.

Deputies Durkan and Crowe spoke about the tragedy of youth unemployment. I agree with Deputy Crowe’s point about the impact it has on young people for the rest of their lives. It changes the options a young person will have as they move through life. The multi-annual financial framework has set aside moneys for projects, such as the youth guarantee, to tackle youth unemployment.

The reason the banking union is so important is that we need to get credit in Europe flowing for businesses and families. The three elements of the union will be the single supervisory mechanism, which will deal with how banks, particularly those that stretch across many borders, are regulated, the resolution framework to deal with failed banks and the deposit guarantee scheme. We are expecting the Lithuanian EU Presidency to produce clear proposals on the latter element. Much work is being done on the supervisory mechanism and the role of the European Central Bank in this. It is expected to have it up and running at a near and credible date. We expect further negotiations with the European Parliament to take place on the resolution element.

Deputy Durkan made the point about the sacrifice of the Irish people. I will never miss an opportunity to make that point in Europe. Along with commentary on Ireland’s progress in dealing with its programme, we need to point out the terrible sacrifices our people have made in dealing with the mistakes of the past. I always offer the example of the changes in our budgets to bridge the gap between taxation and spending. By the time our commitments are upheld, we will have implemented a total package of adjustment that represents one fifth of our national income. That is an extraordinary level of change for any country to undergo. It is at the very top of adjustments any country has made since the Second World War. I will never miss the opportunity to make clear to European colleagues that whatever progress we have made has been due to the sacrifices our people have made.

On Deputy Durkan's point about the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union, it is in our and the EU’s interest for the United Kingdom to be a positive and significant player in the Union for years to come. We have to weigh up the UK’s expectations alongside our national interests. We must also recognise that the European Union cannot renegotiate itself from scratch now. Member states have joined with a knowledge of what it is to be a member along with its commitments and responsibilities.

I have tried to respond to some points made by Deputy Crowe and will return to one more in respect of the role of the Commission. I will touch on a point made by Deputy Dooley and I thank him in his absence for the nice things he said about me. I assure him I will always do my best to maintain it as long as he does.

I appreciate the point he made about my interest in Europe and how I talk about it but that is underpinned by my real belief that if the parties of the centre, centre-left and centre-right cannot come together to deal with the vast crisis we face, who can? What will replace parties in the future if we cannot rise to the historic challenge Europe faces? I am certain that we will and am confident we are making progress in that regard but it behoves us to acknowledge that amidst the debate in Ireland among most, though not all, of us, we agree about more things in Europe than we differ on.

In respect of the point made by Deputy Crowe about the role of the Commission in our budget, this is a consequence of the different governance measures that are already in place like the misnamed six-pack, the two-pack and the fiscal governance treaty. I genuinely take a different view of this compared to that held by Deputy Crowe. I believe the difficulties we have had in Ireland have been compounded by the difficulties in other countries at the same time.

There are two reasons I believe the new procedures are in our national interest. If we act in a way that is in accordance with what our own fiscal advisory council will recommend and in a way that recognises our own understanding of how we need to frame good national budgets in the future, the kind of restraints and oversight that are there will, hopefully, never been encountered. I strongly believe that as we frame budgets in the future in line with suggestions from the fiscal advisory council and the new oversight mechanisms within the Oireachtas, we will not trigger the role of the Commission and other bodies. In respect of the warnings made by other bodies regarding the overheating of our economy in the past, which we in Ireland chose not to heed, if we all had our time again and those warnings were articulated again, we might act differently.

My second point concerning the role of the Commission and other bodies goes back to the point that if other countries have the opportunity to frame their budgets in particular ways, it will, hopefully, prevent the kind of events that have happened in the past from happening again. What we now know is that as significant as they are, if we were only faced with our difficulties, we would probably have the measure of them on our own. What has made the past few years so difficult is the fact that we have had to deal with our own difficulties and the consequences of different countries' difficulties. I believe the treaty we passed and the new procedures in which we will be participating constitute the best and most rational way of ensuring that does not happen again.