Gerard Craughwell (Independent)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I welcome the ambassador and apologise that I was a little late getting here. The eyes of Europe are on Bulgaria right now as it takes over the Presidency. I wish it well. I am sure Bulgaria will rise to the occasion and it will all go fine. On the issue of Brexit, as the ambassador is aware, we got through phase one as a solid cohesive unit in Europe. As we move through the other stages of Brexit, there will be a natural tendency for each country to look towards its own specific economic needs. On looking at the ambassador's words, "security, solidarity and stability", to my mind solidarity and stability are the two greatest things that are required now as we face into Brexit. I am sure the Bulgarian Presidency will play its part.

I turn to the issue of security and migration. While Brexit is a threat to the economy of Europe, security - and migration in particular - is a threat to the cohesiveness that holds Europe together.

We have many different views across the European Union as to how migration might be dealt with. It has always been my view that we need to get away from the label of "refugee" and start talking about migrants. We need to start talking about those who are economic migrants. There will always be a home in all of our countries for genuine refugees who are running for their lives in fear of war and oppression. However, in the case of economic migrants we differ as we move across Europe. The Bulgarian Presidency will now be faced with the challenges involved there. We cannot expect Italy and Greece to handle all of the migrants who present. Nor can we set up border controls that are so rigid we finish up with massive bottlenecks in Libya and various parts of north Africa.

We need to take a proactive approach to economic migration. We need to make rules and regulation that provide for orderly economic migration, be it on a temporary basis whereby people come to build a set of skills and go home to help their economies, or be it that we bring migrants for specific economic purposes. We must manage the migration issue in a humane way. That is something all of the countries in Europe have to do. We all have to carry the load because, returning to the solidarity issue, it is one we must all face. We must take the illegal aspect out of migration. We have to put the traffickers out of business. We can only do so by setting up proper European visa authorising agencies in north Africa and various parts of the world. When I went to Italy late last year to look at migration, I was horrified to learn how far people had travelled only to finish up on some little rubber dinghy being pushed out into the Mediterranean and told Italy is a couple of miles over that way. We know what that has left in its wake. It is a big challenge for the EU Presidency to deal with.

On the issues of crime and terrorism, I constantly get attacked for my concern over terrorism. We are living in a very dangerous world and no country is immune to or totally protected from crime or terrorism. With that in mind, I am delighted to see that Bulgaria is committed to the development of an inter-European information system. It will be vital as we move forward. The passenger name recognition directive will be vital as well. The quicker we get that through, the better.

On the issue of cyber-security, if someone wants to collapse an economy it can be done in cyber-space in a matter of hours. We saw what happened when there was an attack on the health system in the UK last year. The cyber-criminals are out there all the time. It is no longer acceptable for Europe to have 27 different member states working on cyber-security. We need a cohesive, single European-based cyber-security organisation that manages, trains and provides the level of security we need to maintain our economies. I would hope to see something coming in on that front.

I note the interest of the Bulgarian Presidency in promoting entrepreneurship. One of the issues I would like to see addressed is placing a greater focus on micro-economic activity, in other words, the very small start-ups. The ambassador and I both know that a small business with one or two people today can turn out to be the Google or Microsoft of tomorrow.

Having come from an education background, I am extremely committed to anything that would open up pathways for the young. I would like to see the Erasmus programme extended to vocational as well as academic programmes. I want to see apprentice bricklayers, carpenters, toolmakers and so on travelling from Ireland to Bulgaria and vice versa. We need to share those skills and training methodologies across Europe. While it is all fine and dandy for the academic high fliers, as they would be seen in this country, to travel across Europe, those who build and maintain Europe are the tradesmen and craftsmen. We need a programme that will allow them to avail of Erasmus. There is some work being done in that area already in the field of transport.

While the focus on the young is all very well, I came back to education in my 30s as a mature student. We are living in an extremely dynamic world in which the skills of yesterday are long gone in a very short space of time. The need for continuing professional development, CPD, upskilling and retraining is a phenomenal challenge to all countries. As one economic driver dies, another is born. While I am very committed to developing programmes for the young, I would also like to see an emphasis on the cohort that can very quickly become long-term unemployed, namely, those whose skills are no longer required by the economy and who remain unemployed for a period of one year or longer. Somebody who is out of work for a year should be back in a training programme somewhere. That is a function of the Union.

I wish Bulgaria well with its Presidency. Our door is always open in this committee and we look forward to seeing the ambassador on a number of occasions over the period of the Presidency.