Aideen Hayden (Labour)
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I thank all the witnesses for their presentations. I too apologise for my late arrival. I have a range of questions. As I understand the brief it is not necessary to look at EU policy in detail but rather to look specifically at the promotion of Ireland's interest in the European Union and to ensure Europe's voice is strong at a global level.

I have already raised this question with Ms Catherine Day when she came before us. We are moving very quickly towards a much more robust economic and monetary union but the social agenda of Europe of the People seems to have been left behind. We have much closer involvement at governmental level but as Senator Noone has said, it is doubtful if one would find a single person out of 300 people on Grafton Street who could list all the members of the European Union. We are galloping very quickly in one direction but we are also galloping very quickly in another. Is there an inconsistency? We have an idea that the voice of Ireland is heard in Europe, but should we not be looking at the voice of the Irish people being heard in Europe? Are we loosing to some extent the ability to hear the voice of the people of Europe?

My second question relates to the use of our resources for the best effect. Another point Ms Catherine Day made on the scrutiny of EU legislation was that we should focus our effort and identify those areas where we have influence and can exert our influence on European affairs rather than taking a scatter-gun approach. To what extent is that also the case with our engagement with other member states? Are we focusing enough on bilateral engagement? I am conscious for the sake of argument that as Mr. Connelly said, we have moved closer to the northern European model and distanced ourself from Greece. Our strategy in the late 1980s and the 1990s was the opposite, it was to create bilateral engagement with the other peripheral countries, where there was a sense of a shared range of difficulties that also reflected Ireland's difficulties as a peripheral country. Should we be doing more to develop bilateral relations with EU countries that perhaps are closer to the model of difficulty that we are facing rather than wanting to be up there on the economic and monetary scale with the Northern European good boys?

My next question is whether monetary and fiscal affairs dominate the agenda in the EU. We seem to be quite effective in negotiating that. I am conscious of a speech that the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, made in the Dáil about moving to a new style of diplomacy, in which we would move away from the current entrance examination for third secretaries as a means of recruiting people to the diplomatic corps to a new style of ensuring the Department of Finance engaged on the diplomatic level. To what extent has that change worked? Should we be moving to a cross-departmental approach to diplomacy? Are we already there and I have not noticed?

To what extent could the European Union be facing enlargement not from recruiting new member states, but by increased nationalism among some of the older democracies? For the sake of argument, if the referendum on Scottish independence is successful in September what implications will it have on other areas of Europe in which there have been movements toward separatism for many years but with which we have strong areas of national identification? In particular I am considering the challenge Ireland might face if Scotland is successful in achieving independence. The opinion polls indicate it is not looking that likely but much can change in the course of a campaign in the next six months. If that were to be the case, and Scotland achieved its independence, it might have an impact on the outcome of the UK referendum on EU membership as Scotland tends to be more pro-European than the rest of the UK. Would Scotland automatically stay as a member of the European Union if the United Kingdom were to leave the Union or would it be seeking to join the Union behind Serbia? What happens in that scenario and what impact would that have on our interests in peace on the island of Ireland and Northern Ireland?