Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have an opportunity to speak on this issue. It can be that less is more in these scenarios, instead of having all sorts of suggestions from Opposition benches and backbenches on what course of action the Government should take. This is a very delicate scenario which is evolving by the minute, unfortunately. It is really important that we place full trust in the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste, the Cabinet and negotiators who will attend meetings in Europe and also talk across the Atlantic with our counterparts in the United States.

The imposition of tariffs is very retrograde and backward. The last time we would have seen this was probably some time back in the 1930s. The world has embraced free trade since then, and how the world has taken off. We do not live in a perfect world - we spend every waking and living moment here in this Dáil Chamber speaking about the problems our country has and how we would like to fix them - but free trade has benefited this country hugely in job creation and prosperity. It has lifted all boats in this country and across the European Union bloc. I place full trust in the coming weeks in the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Cabinet on how they approach this, but the approach needs to be one in full step with our colleagues across Europe and have its focus on jobs and livelihoods.

This Government is only in place a few weeks but the previous Government, and I was proud to be on this side of the House for those five years, showed during the Covid pandemic that it had huge ability and agility to quickly react to scenarios to ensure things were stabilised, jobs were kept safe and if people lost jobs there would be the safety nets of social protection there. That is something on which the European bloc can pride ourself collectively. The European Union member states are largely western liberal democracies. We have good social protection systems. We can lean on each other and the European Central Bank. Soon enough Donald Trump will have to rethink his tariffs. Ireland very much needs to move as part of the European bloc on this. We should use every voice here in unison to support the position of the Government and the European Union. I would be disappointed if there were any voices in the Chamber in the course of the debate which might say something very left field that would be picked up very quickly by media beyond our shores.

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