Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

James Connolly said, "Ireland, without its people, means nothing to me". To paraphrase Connolly, Europe without its people means nothing to me. Can we speak of European people? We are Irish and European, French and European, Polish and European. We see the shock and anger among people and a new fear of a further period of uncertainty as to what this profound historic rejection means. It must be a wake-up call to the leadership in Europe and to our Government.

The EU has been an essential force not just in building peace but in spreading democracy. It has been an essential force in promoting prosperity, but also equality and human rights. It was the EU which put equal pay and other rights for women firmly on the agenda and prioritised the rights of people with disabilities. This approach to human rights, including women’s rights and the rights of particular groups such as people with disabilities or minorities, brought about many changes in Ireland in recent decades.

When the standing of the EU was at its highest, countries were queuing up to join. I think in particular of the situation after the collapse of communism in eastern Europe. Now, sadly, our nearest neighbour and biggest trading partner is the first member to vote to leave the EU. People in places such as the north of England voted to leave the EU, while people in Northern Ireland and Scotland voted to remain.

The very survival of the EU is in peril. Some reactions are baffling. Angela Merkel has solemnly called for calm. François Hollande has declared that there needs to be a “refoundation” of the EU. Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, who is from Poland quoted Nietzsche: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament, wants matters hurried on and believes “the chain reaction being celebrated everywhere now by Eurosceptics won’t happen”. This is the collective wisdom of recent days of the top level of European leadership.

David Cameron lost his gamble by calling the referendum. He won a general election recently and then gambled, in terms of the internal tensions of the Tory party in England over Europe, that the referendum could be pulled off.

What we have seen, and what faces the Taoiseach and his fellow members of the European People’s Party, is a slow but steady drift of the broad European ideal to the right in several European countries, led by the European People's Party and the forces of the extreme right and, in many cases, their allies on the extreme left.

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