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

I am sharing time with Deputies Finian McGrath, Shane Ross, Seamus Healy and Tom Fleming.

I wish to comment on the irony of Deputy Nash's contribution, which referred to Stalinists being opposed to the European Union.

I remind him that the most prominent former Stalinists in this Parliament are now leading the party of which he is a member. Maybe it is a telling fact that the current leadership of the Labour Party, in their previous incarnation as the Workers' Party, had a slavish commitment to the centralised, totalitarian and undemocratic regimes in Eastern Europe and made regular pilgrimages to Eastern Europe, North Korea and China to kneel before the supposed glories of communism which we all know was a brutal, totalitarian abomination. It seems since their faith in those horrific regimes has collapsed, their belief that there is any alternative to tooth and claw capitalism has collapsed along with it.

Maybe there is a sort of perfect circle in their political trajectory because there are some similarities - I do not want to extend the analogy too far - between the centralised, undemocratic and overbearing communist regimes and the trajectory on which the EU is now beginning to travel. It is increasingly beset with a democratic deficit, where unelected Commissioners, central bankers, European Councils, troikas and all the rest are dictating policy over the heads of ordinary citizens and their elected representatives. Maybe they feel comfortable with the EU as it is currently developing because it reminds them of the good old days of Stalinism.

If there is a worrying growth in the far right in Europe, as there is - people have alluded to it - who is to blame? It is those who are at the helm of the EU and the policies which are being pursued by the EU which created an unprecedented economic crisis and produced a situation whereby we now have 11% unemployment across Europe and far higher levels of unemployment among young people. Some 24 million people are unemployed. It is those conditions of economic crisis, mass unemployment and enormous alienation from the political structures of the EU that are producing a very worrying rise in the far right. The people who should put up their hands and say they have to bear responsibility for this worrying development are those at the helm of the EU.

Let us be absolutely clear. Asking for a review of our relationship with Europe and the policies of the EU is not a statement of wanting to return to some sort of isolated, "go it alone" policy. Rather, it is about questioning the current trajectory and policies of the EU which have led us into the crisis and asking whether should we look at alternative visions of Europe or internationalism.

Let me state clearly for Deputy Nash and anybody else on the other side of the House that I am a thoroughgoing internationalist, as, I believe, are most of those who support the motion. The question is what kind of internationalism and EU do we want. Do we want an EU dominated by corporate interests, bankers and unelected bureaucrats or should it be a social union which prioritises jobs, democracy, environmental protection and sustainable development? That is the Europe we were told in treaty debate after treaty debate that we were getting, but the truth was revealed when the economic crisis hit.

The priorities of the EU were first and foremost to protect private banking interests across Europe. Mass unemployment, huge social dislocation, mass impoverishment for many people and forced emigration was just so much collateral damage we have to put up with in the so-called structural adjustment programmes which have been applied to us. Refusing to even consider alternatives to blind and slavish adherence to the euro and current euro policies is precisely the sort of groupthink and herd mentality that led us into the crisis in the first place.

That is what Nyberg said about the financial crisis. He said the political establishment in this country was gripped by groupthink and herd mentality, and dismissed out of hand contrarians, as he called them. We dare to be contrarians and ask whether the current policies are working, against a background where the whole of the EU is contracting, there is deep alienation from the structures of the EU, some countries are talking about pulling out and the periphery countries have been devastated by the current policies of the ECB and the troika.

I laugh when I hear that we will be saying "goodbye" to the troika. We will say "goodbye" to the troika and "hello" to the six-pack, the two-pack, the EU Commission, the ECB and the fiscal treaty. That is the troika; we are saying "goodbye" and "hello" to the troika. There is an alternative.

See this speech in context