Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Indeed, they turned up for us physically and they saw how important it was for us not to have a border on this island. They did not have to do that but they did it and it improved understanding and helped to shape a European position that was entirely in Ireland's interests. It is our turn to turn up for them and while that does not mean changing our military position, it does mean turning up and respecting and understanding the pressure they feel they are under, even if we do not feel it ourselves, in the same way that Lithuania definitely did not feel it in regard to the issues we faced. If we are serious about solidarity, about our relationships in Europe and maintaining the benefit of those relationships, in an outward-looking way and in terms of wanting to do the right thing, then it is important that we turn up for our friends and make an extra effort to understand the pressure they are feeling. There is a recognition, and I certainly refer to it with pride, of the number of Ukrainian people who have come to Ireland. They represent 2% of our population but we must not get ahead of ourselves either. There are other countries who have taken in close to 2% of their population and there are others who have taken in millions in transit. We must not be too self-congratulatory but it is important to say that the scale of supports that we have provided to people over the whole period, up to now, is significant. So too are the efforts we have made in terms of European Peace Facility, EPF. Ireland has committed approximately €380 million in stabilisation, humanitarian and non-lethal military support to Ukraine through the EPF and other facilities. We have also engaged in other, more targeted projects. For example, while I was in Lithuania it was announced that Ireland is giving €3 million to a Lithuanian school-building project. There are more specific examples of co-operation and partnership that we can do. Lithuania has the skills, capacity and experience to do this but why would Ireland not want to fund school-, Montessori- and crèche-building in Ukraine? Lithuania is building those facilities in Ukraine and we are providing the funding to enable it to do that better and more quickly. Why would we not want to do that? We must make the effort to genuinely understand and not dismiss the very significant security concerns. It is important to note that we are talking about Ukraine more, in our general discourse, than about the Middle East because this is what our European partners are feeling very directly. As was said to me in Lithuania, Estonia and Finland, these are existential questions for those countries. That is the level of threat that they feel and that goes beyond the level of threat that we felt during the Brexit process. They have an aggressive neighbour whereas our situation was different. It is really important, if we are going to maintain our position in Europe, to lean into this in the best way that we can. That was certainly my motivation in travelling to those different countries.

On the Draghi report and the issue of funding, we have not ruled anything out. We are net contributors to Europe now and we must guard taxpayers' money very carefully but we have also had the experience of being net recipients. We know exactly how important it is to develop an economy, and more importantly a society, through the Cohesion Funds, the Common Agricultural Policy and so on. As we look at the funding challenges of Europe for the future we will bring our perspective to bear in terms of a certain frugality with regard to taxpayers' money but also an understanding that there can be a better equality of experience, a better market opportunity experience for our companies and a better level of fairness overall that will benefit everybody in Europe if we invest in the correct things over time. Whether one believes that should be done through the Cohesion Funds or energy infrastructure, both of those things give us a better resilience for the future in terms of energy prices, social cohesion, the development of economies and, therefore, of market opportunities. We have not ruled anything out and we will bring to the discussions that broader perspective that comes from our transition from being net recipients to net contributors. That understanding helps our position in Europe. That empathy and ability to understand both positions helps us to have better and more authentic conversations with our partners.