Mr. Billy Kelleher:

Deputy Richmond raised the own-resources issue. There is no doubt that this will be a significant subject of debate for many years to come. It will get tied up with the Conference on the Future of Europe and the views of various countries and groupings on how we fund the European Union and how it should function over the next five years.

Mr. Macron's group in the European Parliament, Renew Europe, is very federalist in its outlook, not only regarding the political aspects of the European Union but also regarding how it should be funded and the own-resources issue. There will be a significant challenge for Ireland in this regard. There is no debate in Europe on own resources in which the issues of a common consolidated tax base, corporate tax in general, digital taxation, financial transaction taxes and the plethora of other taxes are not raised. Ireland has its own issues in terms of its national interest in some of these areas. Almost every file that comes from the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, ECON, on own resourcing and how the European Union ought to be funded in the years ahead refers to the issue. There is even pressure within the Commission itself to employ Article 116, which effectively tries to get around the issue of unanimity on tax issues. Ireland will have to address that and keep abreast of it. More important, we will have to engage on it. We cannot ask the European Union to do more every day on issues associated with the Covid-19 pandemic, economic activation measures across member states, the Common Agricultural Policy, the multi-annual financial framework and Brexit while at the same time not allowing it to move towards funding itself in a meaningful, sustainable way.

That is going to be a big debate beyond the political aspects and confidence in the future of Europe. My view is that while we have to defend our national interest, at the same time the OECD is looking at taxation and we clearly will have obligations in that area to come to the table in a meaningful way. At one and the same time, we need to defend our national interest but also to allow Europe to fund the next generation recovery fund and the multi-annual financial framework.

With regard to asylum, while I will not go over all the issues, Deputy Howlin has raised a very significant issue, namely, the idea that Europe would do side deals with Turkey, Libya or other countries that are not exactly at the top of the agenda in terms of their capacity to deal with migrants in a humanitarian, fair and reasonable way, and would horse trade for geopolitical reasons over and above basic individual human dignity and decency. As Deputy Howlin said, there are issues around Cyprus, Greece and Turkey in regard to the exploration for oil in the eastern Mediterranean, the flow of migrants coming through and President Erdoan threatening Europe that he can turn on and off the migrant flow. All of those issues leave a huge distaste in regard to the European Union's policies and having to almost outsource the management of the flow of migration to countries that simply do not have decent norms by European standards. It is a big issue. We will have to look at the issue of Turkey, Libya and other countries that use migration as a political tool while having appalling human rights issues themselves.

With regard to the US leaving the Paris Agreement, like Deputy Howlin, I am not quite sure what the final result will be. One would like to think that if Joe Biden wins the presidential election, it might bring America back to what we would consider international norms in terms of treaty obligations, not only in terms of the Paris Agreement but also the World Trade Organization and other international organisations that are accepted as operating according to the international norms we subscribe to. The difficulty, of course, is that if the US pulls out of the Paris Agreement and this gives the US economic advantage in the short or medium term, there could be a greater unravelling of the Paris Agreement across the globe, which is an issue of huge concern. We are trying to tie people in to environmental obligations that would meet certain norms but if the US unwinds and Trump continues in the Presidency, that could have an unravelling effect on the Paris Agreement and would also undermine the European effort in terms of the green deal and our obligations under the Paris Agreement on greenhouse gas emissions reduction. It is very worrying.

We have our own issues around the issue of Brexit and its impact on the island of Ireland, the Good Friday Agreement, the all-island economy, citizens’ rights and Northern Ireland. I believe all of these issues would be better served with Joe Biden in office rather than Donald Trump, who is vehemently anti-European Union. Many of his policies would be anathema to what we stand for and our views on Europe.