Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

We will divide it into 12 minutes and eight minutes. The United Kingdom's decision to leave the European Union is a bad decision for the UK, a bad decision for Ireland and a bad decision for the European Union. It is a symptom of the growing disconnect between politics and the citizens whom politics is meant to serve. It is a symptom of the growing sense of the haves and have nots as well as of the failure of globalisation - we live in a world in which 65 people now own over half of global wealth.

Ireland must act quickly and decisively to protect our interests as well as to support the interests of our neighbours in the UK. Moreover, we should reflect on this result and seek to understand what lessons can be learned from Ireland and the European Union.

The decision to leave the EU will almost certainly damage the United Kingdom. The Treasury has forecast that UK GDP could fall by 6% in the coming years. New regulations and barriers to trade are likely to affect capital flows and international trade in goods and services from the UK. Labour productivity could also be held back by a decrease in foreign direct investment and a smaller pool of skills as immigration flows are likely to reduce.

Thursday's vote also makes the United Kingdom more fragile. We saw those in England and Wales vote to leave the EU but those in Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to remain. People in Ireland must focus immediately on those groups most affected by Brexit. This includes the 400,000 Irish citizens living in the UK and the 115,000 UK citizens living in Ireland. It includes the people of Northern Ireland who will be wondering what this holds for them. It also includes Irish firms trading with the UK.

A total of 400,000 Irish-born nationals live in the UK.

That is more than the populations of Limerick, Cork, Galway and Waterford cities combined. These people and more than 100,000 UK citizens living in the Republic are living with uncertainty. They are looking at the prospect of tighter border controls, potential restrictions on movements and uncertainty about access to social protections and public services, which were key themes in the UK during the campaign.

We need to move quickly to put bilateral agreements in place ahead of EU agreements with the UK to guarantee absolutely the rights and placement not just of Irish citizens in the UK, but also of UK citizens here.

The economic impacts on Ireland could be quite severe - hopefully they will not be. The FTSE index fell by nearly 4% on Friday; the ISEQ index fell by twice that amount and the ISEQ financial index fell by 20% in just one day. So the markets have factored in twice as much damage to the Irish stock market as they have to the UK stock market and we need to be very cognisant of that.

Ireland has trade of about €1 billion of goods and services with the UK each week. Some 15% of all of our exports go to the UK; 20% of our services go to the UK; and 40% of all our food exports go to the UK. The ESRI has estimated that Brexit could cause a fall in trade of a fifth which would have devastating impacts on the food and other industries with close economic ties with the UK.

There are serious questions to be resolved over relations between the North and South of Ireland. We must work to ensure no new barriers are put in place. We also need to seize whatever opportunities Brexit might produce. There is a very real possibility of a new hard border being put in place, which would obviously be a retrograde step. Any disruption to cross-Border economic activity could have a very serious effect on the economy of Northern Ireland and on the Border region here in the South.

The EU also faces a crisis of identity. The EU was meant to be built on solidarity. The Union has the stated purpose of "reflecting the will of the citizens and States of Europe to build a common future." After Brexit we now see calls in France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Greece, Sweden and others to hold similar exit referendums. Those calling for these votes obviously feel that the EU is not acting in their interest and does not reflect their will. However, as we saw during the banking crisis the EU seems to have been captured to a greater or lesser extent by some very serious special interests. The interests of international bondholders, for example, were put above those of the Irish citizens.

The Banking Inquiry found that Jean Claude Trichet when president of the ECB directly and explicitly threatened Ireland in a very serious way. He threatened that if private sector losses were imposed on private sector speculators, he would pull liquidity assistance from our banks and in so doing would collapse our banking system and with it our economy. That is the ECB that is meant to be the monetary body working for the common good of Europe. It certainly has not been working that way for Ireland.

The EU seems to be increasingly run by a small number of countries. We saw the so-called founding members of the EU come together over the weekend to push for a quick exit by the UK. The Minister might be able to clarify to the House if the Taoiseach was invited to this meeting. Angela Merkel is meeting Donald Tusk, François Hollande and Matteo Renzi in Berlin today. It would be useful to know if the Taoiseach was invited to that meeting.

It is critical for Ireland to play a leading role. We are a small country, but in this negotiation we must make our voice heard. If we are not being invited to these set pieces by the so-called central European states, we are off to a very bad start. Was the Taoiseach invited to any of these meetings and if not is every diplomatic effort being made to make it clear to these countries that it is totally unacceptable for them to meet and start acting in this way without the broader EU membership?

We need to stand very firmly with the UK during its exit negotiations. European leaders have been lining up to make an example of the UK. They are going to make it as painful as possible for the UK, just as they did with Ireland. When they saw what happened in Ireland they said, "We don't want anyone else acting like this so we're going to hang this small country out to dry", and that is exactly what they did. It is exactly what they are lining up to do to the UK.

Immediately after the Brexit result was announced, the joint statement from Jean-Claude Juncker, Donald Tusk, Martin Schulz and the Dutch Prime Minister called on the UK to leave "as soon as possible, however painful this may be." The implication there was however painful this may be for the UK. Jean-Claude Juncker has since said that the departure will not be “an amicable divorce”. Given that essentially there is not a Prime Minister in place in the UK at the moment, he is clearly talking about the position the EU intends taking in its negotiations.

After 44 years of membership, the UK is being asked to trigger Article 50 as soon as possible. The UK will need allies during that negotiation and we should be one of those allies.

Ireland’s special relationship with the UK must be maintained and this is an opportunity to strengthen it. We have a special relationship that predates the EU. We need to establish immediately and firmly that Ireland will have its own deals with the UK if necessary. It is critical that we establish the primacy of that point over group deals done between the UK and the EU. The EU will look to lock the UK out. It will be looking to damage its society and its economy to make sure that nobody else thinks about leaving. So if the Swedes, French, Danes, Greeks or anyone else decides to have a referendum, the EU will point at the UK and say, "Look, they can no longer move freely. They can no longer trade freely. They can no longer invest freely. So if you leave, the same will happen to you."

If the EU imposes those types of deals with the UK, it is critical that we have different deals in place. We should not accept a principle that insists the same trade negotiations apply for all of the EU 27 that will apply to the UK. We must have primacy of our own deals.

There are, of course, potential opportunities as the Government has referenced. One would have to think that FDI is set to increase. Commercial activity from the UK looks likely to come over in financial services and in other goods and services sectors. If we can get our trade agreements, free movement of labour, people and capital between Ireland and the UK right, and they can be tighter than a general EU deal, we may be able to benefit and tighten our relationships with the UK because relative to other EU countries we would have freer movement and better relationships. So it could, in fact, be an opportunity.

We are likely to see the movement of skilled migrants to Ireland. There is a tech conference on at the moment, looking for highly skilled people in the tech industry and the ICT industry. It is likely that we will see a flow of highly skilled migrants to Ireland and we should look forward to that.

The people of Northern Ireland critically may begin to look towards the EU and away from London. Some of them already are, as we know. If that is the case, as it appears, we must be positioned as part of the EU to use that opportunity to strengthen our relationships, socially, culturally and economically with Northern Ireland and pursue opportunities as they arise for closer integration.

The UK vote is a symptom of the disconnect between the European Union and its citizens. We have seen this. A recent survey by the European Commission found that 20% of people have a "totally negative" view of the EU. This is a function of the EU's dysfunction and, I would argue, its exclusivity. We have felt the impact of this and the people of the UK are about to see it as well.

The UK vote fits with a global trend. We are seeing Donald Trump gaining support on the promise of building walls and keeping Muslims out of the US. We are seeing the rise of Golden Dawn in Greece, the rise of the National Front in France and the True Finn Party. We are seeing the rise of ultra-nationalism in Europe and an equivalent in the US with Donald Trump in the US presidential election.

Europe's response to the refugee crisis has seen many of those escaping war being described as economic refugees, which is obviously outrageous.

There is a global trend here that needs to be pushed back. It needs to be taken very seriously.

Social democracy, which is pro-enterprise, pro-trade and, critically, absolutely focused on equality and everyone sharing the benefits of economic growth and wealth creation, is a part of that.

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