There is also a tendency to blame Brussels for everything. It is a fairly common practice for Irish Ministers, or, for that matter, Ministers of other governments, to go to Brussels, say their piece, frequently know the outcome and afterwards blame the process, the Commission or the bureaucrats in Brussels for something they may have agreed to or which they only formally opposed in the first instance. By our rhetoric and the way in which we treat Brussels almost like a whipping boy, we necessarily create a democratic deficit about which we then complain.