Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

In response to Senator Bannon's point about "us" and "them", he is right. We are not conscious of how people elsewhere in Europe view us. We are viewed as a positive, progressive and high achieving small state. Somehow or other we do not accept this. We always tend to defer to someone foreign. If one is looking for a consultant, one thinks that if he or she is from abroad, he or she must be better. That is not necessarily true, although it does not necessarily mean he or she is worse. When lecturing in university, I was always very conscious of the fact that there had been an attitudinal change over the last 30 years and that we were becoming more self-confident. We should try to get rid of the mantle we have carried for far too many years that somehow or other we are children of a lesser god. We are equal. While we are not necessarily superior, we should never accept that we are in any way inferior. I know that was not Senator Bannon's point but it is one on which he touched.