Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

That is the first thing. The second issue is that we obviously need to develop FDI but we also need to develop indigenous enterprise and the way to do that is to make sure first of all that input costs are low. Input costs in this country are massively high. They are threatening indigenous and FDI business at a big rate. The other issue is that there are, or should be ,other competitive advantages in this country, such as transport, housing, communications and education, but the Government has been incompetent in its delivery in all those areas over the past two decades. That has weakened our suite of competitive advantages and narrowed our emphasis on the corporation tax element, which again has put us in the sights of the US. We need to do more.

Another element of this motion is to ask the Government to do more in terms of negotiating with the US and strengthening our case. Other than today's meeting with Lutnik and a couple of conversations that Ministers have had with Republican parliamentarians in the United States, there is very little evidence of real diplomatic efforts to make Ireland's case to the US Administration in the matter the Government should. That is not unusual because this Government outsources most things to the EU in many ways. The difficulty is that although the EU was good for Ireland in the Brexit negotiations, it was poor for Ireland in the context of the financial crash 15 years ago. It made decisions on the basis of the needs of Germany, France and Italy and not on the needs of the Irish people. The Irish people have paid 47% of the cost of that economic crash even though we were 1% of it. Another example is the Mercosur deal. The Mercosur deal is an international trade deal based on the needs of German car manufacturers and not on the basis of those of Irish farmers. When there are competitive interests within the EU, we often do not get the right shakedown with regard to needs. That is why it is really important that we do the necessary negotiations with the US. The reality is Ireland could actually be a bridge between the US and the EU in this particular crisis.

The other issue I wish to raise is that it is incredible that this is the first time the crisis around the tariffs has been put on the Dáil agenda. With this crisis looming, probably one of the biggest existential crises threatening this country and our economy, it took Aontú to be the first to put in on the Dáil agenda. It is so frustrating that we are here on the day these tariffs have been implemented and we still do not have a finance committee or a public expenditure committee or a Good Friday Agreement committee to deal with the North-South elements of this. The political establishment has spent more time in dysfunction in the past few weeks than in preparing for this particular crisis. What we are doing now is urging this Government to take a stronger role in negotiating with the United States and with the EU. We are asking the Government to make sure there is a policy of de-escalation within the EU. We propose that the best retaliation would be no retaliation for the moment for the Irish economy because a retaliation from the European side will also put Ireland in major difficulty. We are asking the Government to get real and make sure there is an urgency on this issue. Thousands of Irish jobs and the incomes of so many people are under threat. The Government needs to get active now.

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