Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am happy to make some comments on the post-EU Council statements. At the European Council, the Taoiseach aligned himself clearly with the position adopted by France's President Macron with respect to the expulsion of Russian diplomatic personnel in what was supposed to be a show of European solidarity. They have not shown us much solidarity in recent times. The Minister of State, Deputy McEntee, is well aware of that having been over there. It is a pity the Taoiseach has left the Chamber but we need to get some solidarity from them also. It works both ways.

As I said last night on statements on the Salisbury attack, it was a case of Leo the lion attacking the Russian bear. As I also said, it may be Leo the lamb at the end of the situation in which we find ourselves on this Easter week. We normally have lamb at this time. It might be Leo the lamb because he was too quick to rush into it. As Deputy Clare Daly said, we try to teach our youngsters not to go with the mob in cases of bullying and intimidation or to jump in when there is a suspicion of something but nothing has been proven. I have always believed in the premise of "innocent until proven guilty". It looks here as if the Government has found the Russians guilty and hanged them before any specific evidence has been produced or any charges have been brought. I condemn totally the reprehensible attack on that family and the use of that gas but we should get the full facts first. As I said to Deputy Micheál Martin when he was speaking, what about the trade links we have with Russia? Are we going to simply follow the pack? Is that what Leo the lion is doing? Is it the lion hunting the rabbits? That is a bad move for our Taoiseach but this is what he likes to use to distract people from the messes he and his Tánaiste have created at home.

I note from the Taoiseach's earlier remarks that he was to meet Chancellor Merkel and discuss and adopt conclusions on jobs, growth and competitiveness, including the Single Market, the European semester, social issues and trade. He was also due to discuss external relations, including those with Turkey and the western Balkans. I understand further from the Taoiseach's remarks that leaders' agenda discussions are intended to facilitate an open and free-flowing exchange of views on the future of Europe and that in his words, "these meetings are not supposed to produce conclusions but rather to unlock some of the more contentious aspects of issues on the EU agenda and to allow each of us to understand the others' positions a bit better". We have had a lot of them in that case and it has all been one-way traffic. I do not see where our views were allowed to be expressed or were listened to. We know that from where we are with Brexit. We know what attitude the European leaders took to the sovereign British people when they voted in a certain manner. They took that attitude to us also when we had the Lisbon and other referendums. Where then was all the free speech and free-flowing engagement to which the Taoiseach referred? We are stuck with our Border up the road with no indication of any flinching or engagement or free-flowing exchanges of views. The Taoiseach came back in December with a bullet-proof deal on the Border but where is it now? It is like the snow we got on Paddy's Day; tá sé imithe. It is gone off the mountain with the first bit of sun. The deal he had was not very solid. If that is what he calls bullet-proof, he is some lion. I would rather call him a mouse.

While I welcome the idea of free-flowing discussions, it is a very novel approach from the EU leadership. I do not know if Leo - I should call him "Taoiseach" - is at these meetings at all or if he dreams about them. We have had decades now of leadership from the top with little or no regard for the implications of what European policy means for the ordinary people of Europe. We have seen this quite recently when Donald Tusk and the rest of them bemoaned and attacked the British people for daring to vote out of kilter with their plan, project and vision. We now have free-flowing dialogue, if it happened, as the Taoiseach says it did, whereby issues are sorted out around the table with a chat and a pat on the back. We saw recently in the Italian elections that people at the heart of Europe are almost completely alienated from the European project. What more evidence do we need? All this talk of partnership and alliances rings utterly hollow for many within the European Union, including our own people here as we saw with the banking fiasco. The EU banks were allowed to shovel money in here but when the you-know-what hit the fan, they were gone. They were then our great supporters and gave us a so-called "bailout", which I voted against. I would have voted against it ten times if I could. It was a clean-out. They charged us 6% interest when we got it from the USA and others at 3% and less. They were our friends all right.

People have witnessed time and time again an agenda driven solely by the interests of the bigger members, in particular Germany and France. We now have our Taoiseach lining up with President Macron in France. Perhaps the Taoiseach might inform us what conclusions were reached in his discussions on educational and cultural co-operation and, in particular, on migration, institutional reform and the multi-annual financial framework. Tá sé imithe anois. It is a case, as Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan said, of dúirt bean liom go ndúirt bean léi. Dúirt bean don Taoiseach ach níl fhios aige cad a beidh an fear sin ag caint faoi. These are some of the key concerns many feel are not being addressed adequately. It is obvious to us also but we do not want to listen. Before he left for the summit, the Taoiseach remarked that 19 eurozone members were to meet for a euro summit and that the President of the ECB, Mario Draghi, and the Eurogroup would be present. He said the focus will be on economic and monetary union, EMU, and proposals for a European monetary fund with a banking unit and fiscal policy considerations among others.

This, as well we all know, is a source of the most profound disagreement. In particular, the concept of banking union is riddled with dangers for ordinary people, given how disastrously things could go wrong, and such is the flowing language in which the Taoiseach talks about it. Our own banking system has been a shining example of how not to manage banking affairs. Why would we have any confidence whatsoever that a European banking union would perform any better? I have serious concerns - I only became aware of it when Deputy Boyd Barrett said it - that we no longer have a printing facility if our so-called friends decide to stand on us, choke us or whatever. They abandoned us in our hour of need. It is ironic that this is Holy Week, with Good Friday approaching. We will not have any access to printing money and we are blindly and stupidly adoring to these big shots in Europe and forgetting our own people, especially the little people.

While I have mentioned it is Holy Week, Deputies Kevin O'Keeffe and Noel Grealish and I had a Topical Issue debate here on Holy Thursday last about the persecution of Christians in the Middle East. Genocide is taking place there. Of course, we went there as well and bombed the hell out of them - we supported it as well. We were told there were weapons of mass destruction and there was nothing of the kind. It was all fiction just to suit an agenda. Those people are being persecuted and abandoned by us, both here in Europe and in the European project, where we seal borders to stop them fleeing from Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. It is a crying shame what has gone on there and how we, in modern democracies around the world, can turn a blind eye to what the Syrians and others are doing. When we had Saddam, bad and all as he was, and Gaddafi and other leaders, at least all denominations were allowed freedom of religion and to practice with impunity. Since this dastardly bombardment took place, the Christians are being persecuted, as are minority Muslim sects, Kurds and others. It is genocide. There is no other word for it. We cannot get any discussion at European level. We tried so hard. It was never raised here in this Parliament, only thanks to the Ceann Comhairle, who gave us the Topical debate last year. Many of us had met the Holy Father, and I welcome the fact that he is coming to Ireland in August. The Holy Father asked us at an international conference - he nearly implored the international delegation of parliamentarians - to go back to our parliaments and raise these issues of the persecution of Christians and minority Muslims and other sects. Was there any debate on it here? Not at all, that might upset our friends in Europe. That might upset Macron, our German friends and everybody else. We all go with the flow here. Where is our sovereignty? Where is our neutrality? Where is our respect for nations all over the world to have their own vision, to have their own autonomy and to be free of outside interference? We just turn a blind eye to that. We are in the European project and it is greater than anything else and we must abandon them. It is time that we paid some heed to the obliteration and genocide being carried out against Christians and minority Muslims in the Middle East and raise that in Europe as well. It might not be a free-flowing discussion for Leo the lion. As I said, he would be Leo an lamb óg ar Dhomhnach Cásca.

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