Mr. Frans Timmermans:

On the issue of strategic development goals and housing, while I do not have a complete solution today, the five presidents' report on the future of Economic and Monetary Union may include elements that will allow us to invest more. The money is available in the markets and the need is there. In some countries a failure to speed up building capacity will create another bubble in the housing sector, which would not profit anyone and be a big risk in any society. I know what I am speaking about because we had a bubble in the Netherlands also.

It is already possible for Ireland to access the Juncker fund for investment in infrastructure. This would be an interesting avenue to explore. The fund is successful in a number of member states, but I am not fully aware of how successful it has been in Ireland to date. It is growing very rapidly, especially in cases which involve a sustainability element. If sustainable housing is being built, it is more interesting to look for options with the European Fund for Strategic Investments.

The Deputy referred to another problem - I do not want to dodge the issue - when he asked to what extent it was permitted to do this while continuing to be in line with the rules of the Growth and Stability Pact. We will have to have this discussion down the line because it is one that has popped up in a number of member states.

How do we best submit suggestions on how to solve some of the fundamental problems some member states, especially Ireland, will have with Brexit? We should use all opportunities available to us to influence people, including through the European Parliament and its representative in this area, Mr. Guy Verhofstadt, and the Council of Ministers, in which Ireland is very active and held in high regard, in order that Mr. Didier Seeuws and his team will have all the information they need. We are absolutely at the disposal of Ireland if it has issues it wishes to discuss with our team - Mr. Barnier and his people. If people want me to be helpful in that regard, I will be at their disposal. However, we need to be extremely creative because even if the Commission pays full attention to Ireland's challenges in this respect, it can never be as knowledgeable of the Irish situation as the Irish themselves. While we will engage, we will also need Ireland's full engagement. I would not advocate referring all of this to us. The active participation of the Irish people will certainly help in finding solutions, especially those directly involved in cross-Border issues or certain industries, be it agriculture, fisheries or manufacturing. It will be extremely important to have their input. Already, industries in a number of member states have alerted me to their specific interest in this matter and called on me to ensure their interests will not be hurt in the forthcoming negotiations. Mobilisation through trade unions and employers could also be very useful to all of us.

While I could speak for hours on it, I will make a couple of remarks about the big question Senator Neale Richmond and Deputy Seán Haughey put about the future. What we have been doing in the past ten years is firefighting, as people in this country know better than anyone else. Whenever people had worries or concerns, we responded with figures and statistics. Politics is about striking a balance between hearts and minds. In this matter, only the brain, not the heart, is involved. We ended up in many countries, fortunately not Ireland, in the underbelly rather than the heart or brain.

The passion of anti-Europeans cannot be fought with PowerPoint presentations or statistics. Passion can only be fought with passion. Hate cannot be fought with hate. Hate can only be fought by love and inclusion. I think we have forgotten about that.

I am not into party politics, I hope the committee does not get me wrong, but that is why I really appreciated the Taoiseach's speech on Europe last week, in which he did not talk primarily about the Internal Market or the common currency. He spoke about values. He spoke about the values we share. The Common Market and the common currency are just instruments to underpin what we share in common in terms of values and where we want to be as a society. If I look at that, what Europe needs in the coming decade is for us to tackle some of the problems that we have left unsolved. People are disappointed in us and the European project because we have not yet found sustainable solutions for the migration crisis. We have not yet found sustainable solutions for the security challenges, both those coming from the outside but also those internal to the European Union. We have not offered an optimistic and sustainable prospect for the future of our economy. We have so many opportunities in circular economy areas and in digital economy areas. Why are we not using that potential to the full? Why are we not doing something about youth unemployment? In some of our member states youth unemployment is at 45% or 50%. This is unacceptable and only when we start bringing solutions to these issues and can show that we are able to collectively provide a way forward, that people can people can believe in, can we start talking about the future shape of Europe. This is exactly what the debate was about in Bratislava.

I am not one of those that one sometimes encounters in the European Parliament, who wish to have a huge debate about treaty change and changing all sorts of structural elements in the way we organise our co-operation. I do not think our citizens are waiting for that. Our citizens are waiting for us to come with solutions to the problems which they understand we cannot solve on our own in our member states. Trade is one of them and a question on trade was also put to me. If we do not counter the argument that most radical nationalists use, which is that to protect is to be protectionist, all of our economies will suffer, but none more than countries like Ireland and my own country, the Netherlands. Protectionism has never and will never be an answer. We need trade. We need trade agreements worldwide. CETA is a good example of where trade should be heading. We need to have similar agreements across the world with other partners who believe in free trade as a driving force for our economy. If we are successful in doing that and convincing people, I have no doubt that there will be a change of heart in the United States in that area because I honestly believe that protectionism will only weaken all of us and will not strengthen us.