Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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I will ask a couple of questions and then give the floor to Senator Martin. I thank our guests for their forbearance. This has been a most interesting session. Needless to say, much of the ground that I had initially taken note of has been well covered. It is understandable that a lot of the discussions are not actually looking in the rear-view mirror of the past 50 years. They are quite rightly looking forward to prepare for the next 50 years, as I said. I have experience of chairing Council meetings, trilogues in the Parliament and so on. How can we do these things better is one of things I hope that will emerge from our considerations

My first question is for Mr. Montgomery. In my experience, there is a certain balancing to be done between the Departments of the Taoiseach and Foreign Affairs in terms of European affairs. The centre of gravity has moved between both. Most of the time, it has overlapped. Now that Mr. Montgomery is free of the public service constraints, I would be interested in his take on where the most effective location for driving the European agenda lies. Alternatively, does it, by necessity, require that overlap, with a Department of Foreign Affairs official becoming an official of the Department of the Taoiseach or vice versa?

I will ask Mr. Montgomery three questions. On the embassies issue, just for the future, I was interested in his take of quality rather than quantity, which is a cheap way of describing what he said. We need more in-depth focus on the most influential rather than a broad spread to include everybody. Is that an unfair characterisation of what he said? What does he mean in the context of what we need to be doing with the French? The French have put enormous effort into strengthening their relationship with Ireland since Brexit. I have not, I must say, noticed the same focus from Germany. However, France certainly has, and there is clear drive to deepen that. Is that the sort of thing we should be doing with France and Germany on a regional basis?

When I was in government, I wanted to develop the role of the European Parliament. My view was that we looked entirely at the European Council and the European Commission. We did not put in an awful lot of effort, except during our Presidency, when we were involved in trilogues with the Parliament.

One of my bugbears in dealing with legislation that comes here is that legislative requirements that have been years in the making are often presented to us in the Oireachtas with a deadline of months or sometimes weeks as if this is a rubber-stamping effort. I am conscious that I started in politics a long time ago. We had a secondary legislation committee of the Oireachtas, but the volume of work was infinitely less than at present. It would be overwhelming to deal with it now, but we need to deal with it in some shape or form. If democratic accountability and scrutiny are to be effective, we need to do it in a better way than to be presented with basically a finished article and told we have no manoeuvre on it because it is all agreed except for our rubber stamp, as if the Oireachtas were of no consequence in the process.

I wish to ask Mr. Connelly about where Ireland fits, oscillating between the Hanseatic League countries, prudent fiscal people, and the more expansive Franco-Mediterranean people. Where do we fit in that regard? Ours is obviously now a successful economy. We are a net contributor to the EU budget, as Mr. Connelly clearly outlined in his submission, but where do we fit in terms of building those alliances? Is it possible to be promiscuous in the alliances and partnerships one builds on a given issue, or is a long-term settling partnership the most effective way of dealing with the European institutions?

I have one add-on question to the Inflation Reduction Act, IRA, question. I have just looked at the figures. Since the lessening of state aid rules from early last year until the end of last year, more than two thirds of all state aid allocated or endorsed by the European Commission has come from France and Germany. If state aid means that those with the deepest pockets can afford to distort the internal market, where does that leave us and where should Ireland be in that regard? Are our pockets sufficiently deep to compete in our little domestic market with the best of them or should that cause us deep concern?

My final question is a fundamental one with which we have been grappling for a while, and it has been touched on in a number of the contributions. For the future, how do we deal with a country such as Hungary where what we understood were the essential values of the European Union are no longer applicable? I read an article in, I think, The Irish Timestoday. I think it was a transposition of an article in The New York Timesabout the treatment of the new US ambassador to Hungary, whereby values we hold dear are shredded. Should we simply determine that there is no space for that within the Union? Do we retreat from it or confront it? I am not sure there is a solution but I would be interested in hearing an opinion.

Maybe we will start with Mr. Montgomery this time.