Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

It is appropriate that we should discuss the future of Europe as we face into the European elections in a few weeks' time and also because Europe is at an extremely important crossroads. Unless we change track, there might be no future for Europe. The fear of this scenario was highlighted by the Extinction Rebellion protestors in London over the last few days, to whom I pay tribute and who will be on the streets in Dublin tomorrow. I also pay tribute to the students across Europe and the world who struck out against the threat of climate change and the failure of governments across Europe, including Ireland, and across the world to take the type of radical urgent action that is necessary to address the threat of climate change.

Europe talks the talk on climate change. The targets it sets are better than what the Irish Government is achieving in that regard. Ireland will spectacularly fail to meet Europe's targets in terms of addressing this issue. Notwithstanding the rhetorical commitment to address the issue, on a whole series of fronts the Government is moving in the opposite direction in terms of addressing climate change. It continues to expand sectors of the economy, particularly agricultural exports, which contribute to our very poor record in this area. The Government is failing to address the massive deficiencies in public transport, the expense of public transport and the retrofit of homes and so on which need to be urgently addressed if we are to reduce our fossil fuel footprint.

In terms of Europe as a whole, I do not credit it on this issue. Europe spends €200 billion per annum on military expenditure and is planning to ramp up that spend significantly with the new PESCO arrangement which, tragically, we have signed up to, thereby undermining our neutrality. It is shamefully planning to increase military expenditure and to sell more weapons to despotic regimes in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world. Can anybody take seriously Europe's rhetorical commitments to deal with climate change? That money should be invested in developing renewable energy, promoting fossil fuel use, subsidising and making public transport free and all of the other radical actions that are necessary to deal with climate change but that is not happening. At every level, Europe is hostage to big, corporate lobbyists, the arms industry, the multinationals and the banks. We know the cost of that in terms of the recession that hit this country and the manner in which Europe insisted that that cost was shoved down the throats of the poor. The poverty and homelessness that resulted from that in this country also features across Europe. An incredible 112 million people in Europe are living on or below the poverty line and that figure is rising. Homelessness is on the increase in every country in the European Union except Finland. Homelessness is rising dramatically. These priorities are not addressed by the European Union.

We are all aware of the utterly shameful fortress Europe policies that seek to keep out desperate migrants fleeing the mess that European powers created in places like Libya, resulting in 35,000 to 40,000 desperate migrants, men, women and children, drowning in the Mediterranean Sea. Europe continues to put up barriers and to invest more money in Frontex, frontier security and so on to try to keep those desperate people out. Europe faces a dark future unless we dramatically change tack. The Solidarity-People Before Profit candidates in the European elections, Gillian Brien - Dublin; Cyril Brennan - the North and Adrienne Wallace, will be campaigning on the basis of the need to put people and planet before profit and to build a Europe on that principle, a social Europe, an environmental Europe and a Europe where the wealth is shared fairly and equally and where we start to take the radical action that is necessary to address climate change instead of moving in the direction of militarism and a European army.

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