Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I would also like to be associated with the congratulations to the Irish team, the managers and the terrific fans. I wish them well on Sunday in Lyon. We will also be able to settle an old score by coming out with a win.

No matter what the outcome of the EU referendum in the UK is, and I hope for a Remain vote, Ireland will continue to be a member of the EU. If the debate in the UK has highlighted anything, it is that there is a growing disconnect between EU institutions and ordinary citizens.

Debates here on the issue, particularly on the Government side, tend to take an uncritical view of those institutions. They are portrayed as universally good, which is at odds with the views of a very large number of our citizens. Irish people are not stupid - they recognise that we are a small nation and cannot survive on our own but they also see we were left to carry the can for 41% of the European banking crash. The crippling debt has not only been imposed on us but on our children and grandchildren if it goes unchallenged.

Irish people can also see that the current refugee crisis and the way people are being treated is at odds with the founding principles of the European Union, one of which is human dignity. There is a deference shown in debates and a mindset that we are somehow subservient because of our size, location and level of indebtedness. We have to throw off that mindset and start approaching the European Union confidently and with a critical eye. The arguments made for both the Single European Act and the Maastricht treaty were predicated on how much we were going to receive in return for passing those referenda. It was only when the first Nice referendum failed that the National Forum on Europe was set up to address the growing disconnect between our citizens and the institutions.

We are now at a critical turning point not because of the prospect of Brexit but the issue of TTIP, which looms large. I urge that we approach this with a very critical eye. TTIP represents a profound transfer of power and a fundamental change to the democratic process that once entered into will not be possible to reverse. It is a tipping point. I have been shocked by the lack of debate on this issue in this Chamber, in the media generally, and by our national broadcaster. We need to be questioning and we need to look at the evidence of similar trade agreements that include dispute mechanisms like the one in TTIP. If we are to take a critical position, which I hope we do, we need to be brave and stand over that position even if we are the only ones to take such a position.

Last night on the football pitch, we saw our team throw off the shackles of the small island mentality and their belief saw them through. We need to take a leaf out of that book on the political stage because we can punch above our weight.

Is the Tánaiste aware that in jurisdictions where trade agreements include this mechanism, such as Canada, the number of claims has risen dramatically? One can see the scale on a graph and the costs are paid from public funds. Has the Tánaiste properly evaluated the new price tag on democracy and regulation? Has she properly considered the new special privileges that will be granted to foreign investors and how those new rights do not come with corresponding responsibility? Does she accept that the possible introduction of TTIP will represent a tipping point for democracy as we know it?

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