Ann Ormonde (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the President of the European Parliament, Mr. Cox. I was impressed with the detail given in his speech, and I am proud as an Irish person to witness his knowledge and his capacity to present the facts on the re-shaping of Europe, a prospect for whose realisation he feels deeply.

Mr. Cox has said so much that I hope we can get a copy of what he has said at another time, because some great ideas have been put forward. I have tried to jot them down as Mr. Cox spoke. He talked about giving us back the ownership of Europe and about subsidiarity. These are very powerful words. Up to the Nice treaty referendum we did not own Europe. Mr. Cox and the second Nice treaty referendum have helped us to do so, and helped us towards reaching a decision on where we will go in the reshaping of Europe.

Mr. Cox also referred to the concept of the future of Europe and the fact that we will have such a huge diversification in the expanded Europe, with 25 member states. With that diversification we will have a range of wealth, history, geography, language and people pursuing different interests. It concerns me that we could then have sub-groups emerging in the pursuit of their interests. There are implications for that in the future because of the diversity of so many small states coming into play from such a wide background. It is possible that all of us as Europeans will be called on to hold that Europe together. I would like to hear Mr. Cox's views on that.

We are proud that we will have an Irish President of the European Parliament and an Irish EU Presidency at the same time. That will certainly put Ireland on the map. As Mr. Cox said, we have the capacity, the ability and the personality. We should flaunt it.