Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I listened to what Deputy Stephen Donnelly said about the debate he had on radio with the German ambassador. He told us much of what the ambassador and other people he has been speaking to have been saying but unfortunately he did not tell us what he said in return, although I imagine we can find that out. l hope he drew the attention of the ambassador and others with whom he spoke to the agreement that was made in June in respect of a banking union and the separation of bank debt from sovereign debt and, in particular, to the commitment made by European leaders at that meeting that the Irish financial situation would be examined with a view to improving its sustainability. I hope that he and other Members of the House who engage, whether with ambassadors, Members of the European Parliament or people they come across in their own Europe-based political parties and groupings, mention the fact that a clear agreement was made in June that the Irish situation would be examined, a banking union would be set up and there would be a separation of bank and sovereign debt. That is critically important for this country.

As many Members of this House have rightly pointed out in the course of this debate, the separation of bank debt from the State is critically important in order to lift the burden of that debt from the backs and shoulders of the Irish taxpayer. It is the objective of this Government to achieve that. The Irish people have borne a very big burden for what happened in both our own and the European economy. Decisions were made in October about the establishment of the single supervisory mechanism which is key to the putting in place of the banking union. It is important that those decisions are implemented. Today, for example, the finance Ministers at the ECOFIN Council will be discussing that very matter and I hope and expect this issue will be before European leaders when they meet at the meeting of the European Council. I hope the discussion that will take place around economic and monetary union and the strengthening thereof will be very much about issues which, ultimately, are about lifting the burden that has been placed on the taxpayer and ensuring there is a shared approach to the banking and financial crises across Europe. I hope that the burden the Irish people and their State have had to bear is something that will be approached in a shared way for the future.

I am disappointed at the degree of cynicism that has been expressed in the Chamber about the Nobel Peace Prize. There has been much discussion about Europe in terms of its economic issues, the banking and financial crises and the difficulties of the euro. It is worth reflecting on the origins of the European Union. The Continent was ravaged by war in the 20th century - two of the biggest wars the world has ever seen, in which the main protagonists were European states. Those protagonists are now part and parcel of a European union. It is not only the great world wars that took place - one must also think of the dark night of fascism that hung over Spain, Portugal and Greece. This was lifted and those countries brought into the European Union family. There was the huge change that took place after the collapse of the Berlin Wall. There was the contribution the EU made to the bringing of peace, in particular to the Balkans. There is the work the Union is doing now in trying to bring peace to areas where conflicts are still murmuring away, such as those in the Caucasus. There is the work the EU is doing in areas such as Syria, and also in Africa, using the so-called "soft" power of the Union, as well as development aid and the strengthening of issues such as policing, civil society and so on.

In itself, the European Union is probably the best example of how Europe moved from resolving its differences by having wars to resolving them around the conference table. It continues to make that contribution, bringing peace to other parts of the world. It is not a subject for cynicism, rather it is something of which we, as European people, ought to be proud. We should contribute more to it.

See this speech in context