Derek McDowell (Labour)

I too welcome Deputy Bruton to the Seanad. His presentation was interesting and forthright.

I want first to address the issue of the common foreign and security policy. Deputy Bruton's presentation today, and the article on this issue in today's edition of The Irish Times, were extremely forthright. If they represented the mainstream of Christian Democratic thinking, or indeed Social Democratic thinking within the EU, we would be in a very different situation from that we appear to be in now. I say that with a sense of regret, and with no wish to score points.

The last few weeks have been very depressing for those of us who believe that Europe should be trying to present a common face to the world, and to define its own interests vis-à-vis the rest of the world and indeed internally. Deputy Bruton's proposals regarding the common foreign and security policy are very far-reaching and positive. I would find it difficult to find fault with any of them. The proposal, for example, that Europe should have just one seat on the United Nations Security Council is a good one.

We are a long way however from some of those measures. Most of us in Ireland still think of foreign policy as basically touching on most of the states which are or will shortly be members of the EU. We are going to have to redefine what we currently think of as foreign affairs as being simply internal affairs.