Professor Brigid Laffan:

Let me deal with the big-ticket items. Deputy Haughey asked if we have any reasons to be cheerful and whether any sovereignty issues are lurking out there. Our world is at one of history's seminal switch points. It happens every couple of hundred years, in long cycles. The fundamental political economy and the balance of power and force is shifting across the world. Digital technology is altering so much about how we live and who we are. In those periods of major shift, it is extremely important for countries, especially small countries, to be rooted in environments that provide them with anchors, shelters and scaffolding. After Brexit the EU will be Ireland's anchor, scaffolding and future. There will always be those who hold an almost fantastical view of sovereignty. We see this belief playing out in the United Kingdom. It is very damaging. In the end, sovereignty is about the ability to make the world better for our citizens. In the world we live in, Europe is one of our major anchors. However, it is an anchor that allows us to open to the rest of the world. I would never advocate restricting Ireland's view solely to Europe. Rather, Europe is Ireland's platform for the future.

On the question of reasons to be cheerful, the EU is a very different institution now to what it was prior to the euro crisis. It has become hardened by crises. It has had to confront one crisis after another. It has managed to deal with all those crises, although it has always done so suboptimally because that is the reality of compromise. Politics is a messy business. I have never seen a utopia or nirvana in my life.

On the fundamental capacity of the EU, the recovery fund, where common borrowing was seen as not possible and then suddenly became possible, is extremely important because apart from everything else, it will allow Europe to have a safe asset and will help build capital markets union and help protect Europe in a world of financialisation.

Have we, as a small state, reasons to fear? The EU is a political system and, like all political systems, it is characterised by power, and small states are just part of a Union of 27. If we ever need to worry about Ireland's capacity to influence or have a voice, all we have to do is to interrogate our own experience of the Brexit negotiations. It should not have been possible for Ireland to put its issue on the agenda, maintain it on the agenda and get outcomes that were preferable to other alternatives, unless small state voice and influence matter in the EU. It is really important how we frame Ireland's relationship with Europe. Europe is not over there; Europe is part of Ireland and we are part of it. I say this really strongly because of the nature of the world we live in today. There is no future for Ireland unless it engages with, influences and participates in that evolving European Union. It is the available scaffolding and anchor. If 19th century Irish nationalists had been told that there was a union in which Ireland could participate, with a seat at the table that was not dominated by the UK, Irish nationalism of the late 19th century would have thought that it was close to utopia. We need to be careful how we frame this and our relationship with Europe.

As to whether or not I am cheerful about the EU, I am an analyst so I am never cheerful but we should not underestimate the resilience and robustness of the EU at this juncture. It is partly because in the world we now live in, one that is dominated by great power competition between China and the US, the EU is Europe's essential arena in which to protect its interests in that world.