Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank all Members for their contributions. I will respond to each in turn and offer some views on the points made. Before doing so, I want to frame the debate with figures that provide the.backdrop to the discussion and some of the challenges Europe and Ireland will face together in the years to come. The first concerns Europe's share of the world's population. At the beginning of 1900 Europe represented nearly one quarter of the population of the world. Currently, it represents 12% of the global population and by 2050 it will represent 7%. In the economic context, depending on how it is measured, Europe represents four or five of the ten largest economies in the world. By 2050, based on current trends and a degree of judgment, it will have two of the ten largest economies in the world. We will, therefore, see a large shift in Europe's share of the world's population and wealth. Much of the change will happen for positive reasons. It will happen because purchasing power in other countries and regions is beginning to change and develop. Europe and Ireland have invested in and supported strongly the development of these changes. Much of the development is due to the fact that the rest of the world is getting healthier, as demographics change, and Europe's place in the world will change from where it has been historically, let alone from where it is now.

I offer these figures to colleagues to give a brief sketch of the change likely to take place across the world in our lifetimes, let alone the lifetimes of generations to come. This will offer major opportunities and pose major challenges to Ireland. We are very much aware of the acute challenges faced in the past five or six years in response to the major changes taking place at such speed within the European and global economies and Ireland. Due to the shifts outlined, many of which will happen for positive reasons such as the changes in demographics and technology and positive developments in other economies, there will be equal, if not greater, challenges in the period to come. I emphasise these changes because they offer a new rationale for the benefits of the European Union. They offer a practical benefit in supporting the level of integration, while being open to thinking about what will happen in the future. In the face of the changes mentioned, which provide the backdrop to the changes outlined by Deputies, given the scale of the challenges and the opportunities, the only way any country in Europe, no matter how small or big it is, can respond is by working with others and sharing the challenges and opportunities we face collectively and taking advantage of or rising to them. In a number of my contributions in the Dáil and elsewhere during my months in office, I have pointed out that all roads lead to that point and the question of how countries like Ireland respond to these opportunities, given their scale. The best vehicle for us to respond is through the European Union. The strongest rationale for supporting strong participation in the European project is a national one. On its own, Ireland could do very well in the face of the changes I have outlined, but it can do even better based on how we work with our neighbours. The European Union offers the best way of coming up with that model and mode of co-operation. Despite the challenges the Union has faced in recent years, if it did not exist, in the face of what I have referred to, we would be working to create it now or in the future. The instincts that guided Schumann, Monnet and great political figures from across the political spectrum are as true now as they were then.

The themes touched on by each Deputy relate back to that level of change. Deputy Micheál Martin made an important point in stressing that between outright opponents and outright supporters of the European Union there must be a space for those who are supporters of what it has achieved in the past and is achieving but who want to be critical and offer differing views about its direction. The point is important because the absence of that space leads to the creation of political forces, as seen elsewhere, that could, if not challenged, pose great challenges to the benefits the European Union has managed to achieve.

Deputy Seán Crowe referred to the need for a social Europe and for us to respond to the challenges of equality and opportunity. Where I differ is that I believe the European Union, as constituted and regardless of how it may change in the future, still provides the best platform for individual countries to respond to the challenges he correctly identified. I differ from him on the idea that the European Union imposed austerity on member states. Regardless of whether Ireland had been inside the European Union, we had reached a gap between the spending to which we had committed and the taxes we were taking in and no one was willing to fund the difference. That was one of the key reasons for the major difficulty the country has endured in recent years. The challenge was not one imposed on us by the European Union or any other body. It had to do with spending and taxation decisions made in Ireland. While saying this in reference to the point made by Deputy Micheál Martin, I acknowledge design flaws and mistakes in the mechanisms in place to create and supervise a single currency, most notably the absence of equivalence for large European banks and the absence of the measures and architecture being created in terms of how budgets are created and recognising how decisions one country makes can have a major impact on another through the shared single currency.

Deputy Mick Wallace referred to Capital in the Twenty-First Centuryby Thomas Picketty, a book that is getting a lot of coverage. I have nearly read most of it and challenge his analysis about the challenges that can be posed when the rate of return on capital is substantially ahead of the rate of return delivered when national economies are growing. For me, much of the response can best be delivered through membership of something like the European Union because it offers a mechanism whereby the efforts of individual member states can be co-ordinated to deal with the difficulties of one country in taking a measure on its own and not being supported by or being challenged by decisions other countries can make.

I endorse and recognise the huge work being done by Deputy Dominic Hannigan through the Oireachtas Joint Committee on European Affairs. I appear regularly before the committee. The point the Deputy made about the need to support the political legitimacy of the European Union is very important. If we do not keep going back to the well of popular support the peoples of Europe offer to any political project, whether national or European, we run the risk of eroding that foundation in the future. The work parliamentary committees all over Europe do, including that of the Deputy, plays an extremely important role in scrutinising the work of governments and ensuring popular support and its foundations are constantly uppermost in the minds of those of us involved in the European project.

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