Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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You have covered a huge amount of ground, Minister. I have just a couple of small points or questions.

I will, if you do not mind, go back to where you finished. The Taoiseach made a very important reference in, I think, a CNN interview he did in New York a couple of days ago to the human rights element within the trade situation with Israel. It is imperative on us, with our European partners. It will undermine so many of the other conversations we talked about this morning in terms of talking to members of the European Union that want to come in and our existing colleagues and member states of the European Union about their observance of the rule of law if we, as a bloc, decide to disregard parts of a trade agreement that contains human rights clauses and, as the Taoiseach quite clearly said, treat them as if they are not there in reality but some type of window dressing that can be ignored. It is very important that Ireland continue that work with our EU partners in that area.

This committee has done a huge amount of work, including recently in Serbia, which we visited, but also in other parts of the Balkans etc., on the European Union's recognition that part of the issues we are talking about today - Georgia is a classic example - is almost exclusively the bad actors creating a situation. There is no get-off-the-hook. The European Union, however, created the vacuum. If prospective member states are waiting 20-plus years to get into something they want to get into, we are watching generations of young people grow up in their countries believing in Europe and having that somehow denied to them. It creates a fertile ground then for malevolent actors, particularly state actors in the region, to intervene to reset the agenda. It is so important that our position on enlargement and how we talk about it as a country is doubled down on.

One thing to which the Minister of State alluded but which I think is far more important is the decision by Germany on Schengen border controls. I appreciate that it is, first, technically legal to do on a short-term basis because of a security consideration and, second, effectively a domestic response, but it is extremely worrying that the largest European Union country in terms of economy and population is moving to a consideration of the reimposition of border controls. That impacts the concept of the free movement of people, the Single Market and, as clearly shown, the ability to move goods from A to B. It is a worrying thing and should be on the agenda of the political leaders of Europe to look at. We have seen this already a little with Italy and France, but if it becomes the acceptable norm as a response, we could very quickly be moving ourselves to a situation which I believe would strike at the heart of where Europe has been at its most successful.

My other point is something I feel quite strongly about as regards funding, which the Minister of State talked about at a very early stage, and the funding mechanism for Europe, whether it is on the common defence side or in other areas. The European Union is not a sovereign state and therefore does not have the structures of a sovereign state. I would emphasise great caution as regards the ability of an institution to create debt, which always has a knock-on effect on sovereign states, and particularly as regards how changes may come about within the governing parties of European states, which could agree to the actual structures to incur the debt and find out at a point in future that those countries no longer agree to the structures of how the debt would be repaid and the impact that would have on smaller member states that are users of the euro. I hope that Ireland is in that space on that.

Those are my small points. You have covered an awful lot already, Minister, so you may comment on whatever area you wish.