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

I also welcome the fact that the Taoiseach met Jeremy Corbyn. Whatever else one might say about the mess in Britain, we would be in a far better position if Jeremy Corbyn was the Prime Minister. He is far more sympathetic to the situation in Ireland, far more knowledgeable about what the reinstatement of a border might mean and he is not somebody who wants to be in a conflictual relationship either with Ireland or wider European society. That marks him out as being a long way from pretty much anybody in the Tory Party.

One of the reasons Mr. Corbyn gained popularity is that he tries to channel in a progressive direction the anger and alienation in British society, the justified and legitimate feeling in large parts of British society, which played a big part in the Brexit referendum, of being left behind because of inequality, poverty, unemployment, alienation and so forth. That is relevant not just to the Brexit debate but also to the wider European situation. Europe has an incredible 112 million people who are at risk of poverty. One in five people in Europe is suffering from mental health issues and there is a massive overlap with poverty, exclusion and so forth. Does the Taoiseach not think that European leaders must take that seriously and address it? Even in the exit poll from the recent European and local elections, and this has been little remarked on, more than 80% of the people who voted in those elections in Ireland said they wanted something done about the gap between the haves and the have nots. This is a problem across Europe and if we do not address it in the way Mr. Corbyn is trying to, the far right will exploit the vacuum.

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