Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Go raibh maith agat agus gracias, ambassador. I apologise if I repeat anything that has already been said. I needed to speak in the Dáil on the nature restoration law. As Deputy Howlin would say, I need to speak on everything. I made the point that we are dealing with multiple crises. Work on many of these issues is only possible on the basis of co-operation. I liked that the ambassador spoke in his opening statement about social and economic justice and migration. These issues are the Achilles heel of the European Union. We saw what happened with Brexit. There may have been people who yearned for long-lost empire but a huge number of people who felt they were on the periphery of British society were taken advantage of, in my view.

On the issue of strategic autonomy, we all know the issues that arise with regard to what the Americans are doing, we know that during the Covid-19 pandemic, we did not have a sufficient amount of semiconductors and then there is then the war in Ukraine and the energy crisis.

We need to sort it from the point of view of geopolitics and energy security but also on the bases of cost and climate change. It is about ensuring we do all that. I agree with the ambassador on migration, in the sense we also need to have a sensible conversation. Migration is here to stay. It is a fact of life. We could not operate without the people who come here to work in our hospitals and we need more people to build our houses at present. It is also about looking after both the social and economic needs of our people and there has at times been a failure across the EU to see that as being vital from the point of view of protecting the Union.

The ambassador spoke about Sudan and that shows direct solidarity. During the period of Brexit and the disasters that have followed, we appreciated that solidarity. We are in a different geopolitical situation now. We all know of the issues that exist because of the Russian invasion. Europe has shown itself to be much more resilient than I imagine Vladimir Putin was expecting. Accession for Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia is now a real conversation. The western Balkans probably feel they got a poor deal in recent years, while accepting there are particular issues that need to be dealt with as regards the rule of law. We dealt with this question recently and one of the issues that was thrown up to us was that Spain and a number of other states have not recognised Kosovo. This is just one of many issues and I accept that across the board, rule of law and the issues that exist with Hungary probably meant there was a general notion that we would get our house in order before considering letting anyone else in but we have to give people an option. No more than when there is talk of strategic autonomy, it is about delivering strategic autonomy and not screwing over Africa, poorer parts of Latin America and all the rest of it. We do not want to become an old-style empire.

We need to co-operate, to get on and all the rest of it and it is a best-case scenario that we all have our internal issues. It will not come as a shock that we want to see certain changes in the EU not very far from where we are sitting at the minute. Spain has its own issues and what we want to see is the engagement that needs to happen to bed down the peace process in the Basque country and proper engagement with the Catalonians. None of us are especially hurt by talking and engaging and that is all positive.

I have covered a sufficient amount there. It should take the ambassador a good five minutes to answer them all comprehensively.