Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of our party, I pass on our sympathies and prayers to the family of Colm Horkan following the terrible, tragic loss of his life in the line of duty last week. It reinforces the sense of pride in An Garda Síochána and the founding principles of that organisation, which involve policing with the trust of the people, which is reinforced when one sees the like of his service and the loss that his family has suffered. As others have said today, ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

I join in congratulating the Government, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and our diplomatic service for securing a seat on the Security Council at a time of real uncertainty in the world. It is a vote on behalf of small countries and for the need for small countries to stand together in the world in these uncertain, difficult times. It is also a vote in support of the multilateralism that this country has always espoused, not just in our membership of the European Union but within the United Nations, the work of our peacekeeping forces, our involvement in various climate treaties and so on. That willingness to be global in our thinking even though we are a small island secured us this seat.

As we look forward to taking the seat up next year, it is a time of real risks, uncertainties and dangers in the world. One can see it in the response to the Covid crisis where different approaches have seen different results. In general, the European Union has shown that democratic, open societies can manage to pull people together to produce a response which saves and protects lives, particularly when one looks at the figures for what has happened in Europe compared with what is happening in the United States, Brazil and other counties, where a different emphasis on what is important and how we organise has seen a different result. That need for multilateralism is also seen in what is happening in the ongoing trade wars and the unwelcome withdrawal of the US Government from the OECD process of looking at how we regularise, improve and close loopholes and stop corporate tax evasion, which has bedevilled our world.

I encourage the Government to support the proposed Next Generation EU recovery fund and the expansion of the multi-annual financial framework, the €1.85 trillion package that the European Commission has presented. It is vital that that is agreed at the next European Council meeting, which will happen in person, because time is of the essence and we need to be fast. I support it because I believe the focus on investing in a green and digital transformation is right. It is right for Europe because if one looks at Europe's place in the world, such an emphasis on funding that green and digital transformation will help in various ways. We grew up in a world where the wealthiest 20% of the world, the West, consumed 80% of the material resources. That was never right and it will not be possible or right in the future. If the world is to manage the challenges that it faces, it will have to see more equal distribution of wealth and consumption of resources across the developing world as well as the developed world. Going green and being efficient in using less by using digital technologies to maintain our quality of life without consuming all those materials is the right long-term strategy for Europe.

It will also see a contraction of some of the supply chains that have grown in recent years, particularly in the development of industry in China since that country joined the World Trade Organization, WTO, and a return to reliance on local industry. That will be hugely beneficial in Europe. I believe the root cause of much of the rise of far right, anti-migration and other sentiments in the European Union has been the loss of jobs and industries in traditional communities across Europe. Going green and going digital and bringing supply chains back and having greater diversity of sources of supply makes sense and the Covid-19 crisis has shown us that is a much more secure system.

The third reason this makes sense for Europe and Ireland is that we have real expertise in these areas of green and digital technology. Europe has been ahead in many instances of other continents and other countries. It has been seen to have lost some of that early starter advantage, but I believe we can win it back. It is also the right and appropriate strategy for this country. The green revolution in transport, agriculture and energy will bring to this country all the benefits I have cited as existing for the rest of the European Union. It is critical that the two go together, because the digital technological transformation is one of the key components in achieving the revolution in transport, energy and agriculture and land use. The use of digital technologies in those revolutions and changes is one of the key components in getting it right.

To do that, we need to focus on the ethical rules and investment in the soft elements and not just the hardware. We need to invest in our media and information systems so that our democracy is well informed and can make the right decisions around those ethical rules. As the home and centre of many international social media and other digital companies, we need to set the right ethical rules, and new rules, for those businesses, recognising they have a duty of care not just to maximise profit but to show that this digital revolution is something that will benefit people rather than just companies. We have to set the rules so the ownership of data, particularly as we move and develop new health tracing systems, show best practice in respect of citizens being at the centre of this digital revolution and not corporations. The countries that get that right are the countries that are going to see the most progress, investment, development and benefit.

Also in that regard, in this digital and green revolution we will have to manage whatever Brexit may bring. I will take the example of the green energy revolution. We will move towards a 100% renewable energy system. To get that right, we have to balance the power supply over a wide regional area. I believe we will move to a north-west European regional electricity market, which really will ship power over long distances and match hydropower from the Alps and Scandinavia with solar from the south and wind from Ireland. Balancing that is going to be the key to success. That is happening and that is where money is going to go.

We happen to have the particular difficulty in having the United Kingdom between us and the rest of that regional market. Whatever we do in the Brexit negotiations, therefore, and in managing what is going to be a very difficult process, we must ensure we get agreement on the mechanisms to allow us to continue to connect to the UK, to balance our power supply with the UK and to connect the UK to the rest of the north-west European regional electricity market so we can run our whole economy in this electrical, renewable and sustainable way.

I argue it is the same when it comes to digital services and rules and guidance concerning digital technologies. I do not believe it would be effective for the UK to have a completely different rules-based system for Internet commerce or personal data management. In the end, I believe the UK will have to follow the GDPR rules and standards set within the European Union. How we manage that, how we convince the UK authorities of that and how we organise that is going to be one of the most difficult diplomatic challenges we will face in the next year and onwards.

We must do all of this while also investing here at home. It is in our interest to get answers to those questions set out by the Taoiseach regarding what is agreed. It is right that there will be borrowing at scale, targeted in this new recovery package. We should be liberal in our thinking about considering grants and not just loans, and we should seek to ensure there is real scale beyond ambition because the scale of the transformation we have to make is so great. It is in all our interests, in Ireland and Europe, to be good at this. We should minimise the conditionality, the difficulties and the restrictions; we have to be fast in doing this. I hope that is what we will see happening in the next month with agreement on that recovery fund

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