Mr. Cox, MEP:

In the Europe of values I am proud we are giving a lead in sustainability, in global warming and the Kyoto Protocol. We need to keep that challenge before us because what we are doing is bigger than merely something for ourselves or our generation.

Mr. Cox, MEP:

I admit we should do more, but I am proud of the fact that the EU is the biggest donor community in the world, giving annually more than two and a half times what the USA gives in terms of untied aid to the poorest nations on earth. I am proud that we are the largest donor of humanitarian food aid, mostly bought in the places where we go, rather than by selling our goods by subsidy to others.

Mr. Cox, MEP:

I now present a challenge. I ask the Seanad to assist me as European Parliament President in an exercise which I hope the Irish EU Presidency might take up, which marries some of the issues I have mentioned. We are an ancient country with long traditions, one of them greatly recognised and celebrated across continental Europe, namely the missionary tradition. Times change and things move on, but there remains some kind of depth about Irish out-reach which has not gone away. Whether it happened during the Celtic tiger period or post Celtic tiger, we have become a digitally literate society. The biggest gap today does not relate to simply sending a goat to someone who is a farmer, or sending a cow where there is no cow. I do not dismiss these actions, all of which are positive, but the biggest gap for tomorrow's world is the digital divide between the haves who are on-line and the have-nots who are wholly excluded.

Mr. Cox, MEP:

With our missionary tradition, our digital literacy and a budget line on which I am working in the European Parliament for next year, let us try to give an Irish leadership to touch the idealism of European citizens much in evidence when the debate on Iraq got under way. People hanker in some way to be given a lead, to connect and reach out. Let us try to work together during the Irish EU Presidency to create a European development volunteer corps, and give an Irish lead to a missionary tradition, a digital literacy and a determination to bring solidarity for tomorrow through education, using the capacities with which we have been gifted in this generation.

Mr. Cox, MEP:

This is a wonderful moment for European affairs. It is so special that the two major European political institutions should coincidentally and for the first and only time in our 30 years in the EU be led by Irish Europeans. We are a people with pride, values and capacities. Let us together bring those to Europe in the next six months and leave a legacy of which I know we can be proud. Thank you.