Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is amazing how much recent statements on European Council meetings have been dominated by the war in Ukraine. It shows how there has been such a significant shift and the impact that war has had. The key issues with respect to the inflation crisis and the war are increased interest rates from the ECB and a very significant increase in fuel costs. Both those issues are having a real impact on households and the cost of living across the Continent. The Government has taken significant steps. Another €200 payment will be going towards fuel costs, but as we head into the winter and as many people on fixed rates start to exit those, we need, at both domestic and European levels, to continue to protect people from the impacts of those two issues, especially over next winter and into 2024. Government alone cannot protect or insulate people entirely from the impact of those, but we need to do more and it cannot just be at a national level. There must be a clear European response.

Something that transcends any one European Council meeting is the issue of immigration and the attempt by some within the European political spectrum to vilify the people fleeing war, vilify the impact they have on any one country and to exploit the very genuine needs and frustrations often in very disadvantaged communities across the Continent. Europe must ask itself a significant question. Europe has been dominated by extreme ideologies for more that 100 years in different ways. These include Bolshevism, fascism, communism and different forms of extreme ideology. There are many who believe our current liberal form of democracy is worth protecting, but if we are to truly protect it, we must ensure we go into the communities that are experiencing disadvantage, where there is generational unemployment, issues of addiction and child poverty, and have Europe invest in them at a European-wide level in the way it did successfully, in terms of regional policy, in rural areas. Ireland benefitted hugely from European investment in rural Ireland and in regional policy, but there are urban areas across our Continent that now need that same investment.

Of course, national governments should not shirk their responsibilities and we need to do far more as a national government to tackle those issues, which happen over a generation rather than over any one Government term. I welcome the current Government's commitment to roll out the north-east inner city model to new communities. That will help. It provides interagency responses to issues of disadvantage. However, if we do not tackle at a European-wide level these issues in our core cities, where disadvantage is being exploited by the people on the far right who believe the World Economic Forum is some kind of world government that is coming in to take over, then those fears will be exploited by the populist right and we will lose the very sacred form of liberal democracy that serves us well and serves the nation well. I hope the Government can echo that at a European level and that we have a wider European response to these issues, rather than relying on national governments alone.

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