Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

I will respond to the Tánaiste's point about the democratic component, as he is being somewhat disingenuous in his reference to the role of the European Parliament. Paragraph 5 of Article 12 states: "The President of the European Parliament may be invited to be heard". The phrase is "may" rather than "will be". That is the extent of the involvement of the democratic part of the European Union, which we all know does not have much democracy.

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