Joe McHugh (Donegal North East, Fine Gael)

I welcome this opportunity to speak on the development of the European Union which is the conversation on everybody's lips. Greece is the subject of comment every morning on national radio and Italy is the subject of comment on local radio. This morning, the president of the Athens chamber of commerce was interviewed on "Morning Ireland" which was a sign that this world has changed. Five years ago, a conversation about Greece would have been with regard to holiday destinations and temperature and sandy beaches. Now we are hanging on every word of the president of the Athens chamber of commerce. This is an evolving and serious debate which affects every individual in this country.

Different degrees of the monopoly of wisdom exist in this House. There seems to be a concrete monopoly on wisdom on the other side of the House. I do not have a monopoly on wisdom and I am not good at predicting the future, unlike others on the other side of the House. I like to stick to the facts and the debate should deal with what is known and what is possible. There is uncertainty within the EU. Following the announcement of a referendum in Greece there was an increase in this uncertainty. Prior to the EU agreement, money had started to flow back into our banks and capital started moving back into this country. Investors watch the situation on Twitter and anything that happens in New York is monitored instantaneously in Beijing.

The Government was given a twofold mandate last February. It was a mandate to clean up the mess and a mandate to renegotiate the EU-IMF deal.

I wish to put on record the important interventions by the Minister for Finance and the Taoiseach, in the first place to get our house in order but also to renegotiate different aspects of the deal. It is a naive argument to state this is not an ongoing process. It would be foolhardy to say our officials are not constantly engaged in trying to renegotiate this deal for the future.

We divide the argument into what we cannot do, what we know and what we can do but as a politician I have my reservations and I would be disingenuous not to articulate reservations from within my constituency regarding the EU project. We gave a resounding "No" vote to Lisbon in the first treaty referendum and in the second one Donegal people were consistent - the county was the only one in the country that voted "No". There are reservations, therefore, about certain democratic deficits in the EU project, as mentioned by the previous speaker. That is where the debate lies - how do we address these democratic deficits? As we go into the future with the EU project how can we ensure we have certain safeguards? We need to ensure the 17 eurozone members have a better fiscal capability and there is understanding between nations rather than consensus on one level and broken deals on another.

It concerns both me and my constituents that there is a cosy Sarkozy-Merkel duet going on. Every time they turn on the television people are consciously and subconsciously looking at those two figureheads. They see them every time something seems to be going wrong, every time there is a summit or when certain language is used such as Prime Minister Papandreou being "summoned" to the G20 for a "dressing-down". This type of language is not healthy. It does not sit well or rest comfortably with me that from a media point of view these two figureheads seem to be driving the EU project and its development. That is certainly not the case but it is the perception which is being orchestrated at EU level. Our officials, our Minister and everybody within the EU, whether the Finns or the Irish, are working hard and together. We should be conscious of this.

Where do we go from here? We can look at the crystal ball territory through which certain Members of the Opposition are travelling. I do not believe we have a monopoly on predicting the future. We should keep at what we are doing, try to get our own house in order and instil that confidence which is permeating internationally at present. If one speaks to investors, to people across the United Kingdom, as I did recently in Brighton, or to colleagues, one finds we are developing a reputation. This is a reputation that used to be present but it was tarnished. We are rebuilding it. It is not an easy job but it is happening.

The populist moves and options exist. There is the populist option of reneging on the €700 million due from Anglo Irish Bank to which we are legally bound, although not from a bank guarantee point of view . Let us call a spade a spade. Who in this Chamber knows the ramifications of what might happen if certain unsecured bonds are reneged on or defaulted upon? What are the knock-on effects? They could involve not only that €700 million but also other unsecured and unguaranteed bonds. Does anybody have a monopoly on the future? The finance spokesperson from Sinn Féin, who is not in the Chamber at present, had a monopoly on wisdom before the last general election. His party was going to run the country using €15 billion, plus another €15 billion from the Central Bank, after they had reneged on the EU-IMF deal. That was to take us up to the end of the year but now that we are near the end of the year, when that €30 billion would have been spent, where would we go? We need a genuine debate. We must be very careful about the kinds of confusion that come not only from politicians but from the very magnitude of the challenge that lies in the EU project. We owe it to our citizens at least to be honest regarding the job we have.

There is and will be a great deal of emotion. No doubt, when the Greek referendum is put to the people there will be much emotion, whatever the result. There is dangerous territory when we use emotion as a political tool in this House. We on this side of the House are conscious there are people who are losing special needs services and people leaving the country on a daily basis. These are not just young people but men who are leaving their families to go to Australia. We know this emotion because we come across it every day. People on the other side of the House do not have a monopoly on understanding what our constituents are going through at the moment, what people in this country are going through. It is very tempting and alluring to use emotion as a political tool. Times are grave. We do not need to tell the people this - they are absolutely terrified about the future. Let us bring them a bit of sense with this debate, tell them what we know and what we can do. Let us bring this debate to a position that is not simply about coming out of uncertainty. We will never have constant certainty but we must at least be genuine with our constituents and the people of this country.

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