Brendan Ryan (Labour)

I was wrong for a reason that was not a part of the debate, not because of economic issues but because of the cultural transformation of the country. This is evident in our sense of self-confidence and particularly our liberation from the neighbouring island. Our world view has expanded through the involvement of our public service and politicians in the European project. Nobody can dispute the values and principles that underlie this famous project.

The most important of those values has been extraordinarily successful. Senator Maurice Hayes is probably the only person in this House who recalls what the world was like during the Second World War. I was recently in Africa, and the Africans, who are tiring of the Western world lecturing them about bloodshed, are quick to remind us of the scale of slaughter on a continent which sometimes strikes poses about its sense of superior civilisation. By comparison the scale of the slaughter in their countries was quite small, given their extra problems. The end of war between European countries is a significant achievement. War between France and Germany or between Great Britain and Germany is unthinkable now. That is a great achievement and it did not happen by accident.

There are other areas, however, in which Europe has not lived up to its own ambitions. For example, I am unhappy about the economic values written into the Maastricht Treaty. They were profoundly liberal and to a degree inserted into the constitution a view of how the countries and the world should be organised which was characteristic of Thatcherism. Some of the strictures about stability are excessive, unnecessary and could well harm the European project.

I have no problem with the expressed aspirations of the common foreign and security policy but I have problems with the way those aspirations are used. The high representative for the common foreign and security policy is extraordinarily determined to be secretive. If we are an open, democratic and accountable set of institutions at home and within the European project, there is no need for secrecy particularly in an institution which has no army, or covert operations abroad. This obsessive secrecy is worthy of serious consideration.

I am profoundly unhappy with the involvement of the European Union in the Intel issue because it appears to be rigidity gone mad. If we were diverting investment to Ireland——