Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House and thank her for her words about the Seanad. She is very welcome, with or without an entourage, and I thank her for circulating copies of her speech. It was helpful and has clarified some of the context of the debate.

We all welcome the fact political agreement was reached last week by European leaders. We must also accept that at present this is a political agreement and the legal text is not yet ready. Clearly the lack of clarity about the nature of the agreement and its parameters means we cannot answer the question at this point of whether a referendum will be necessary. In a way it is unfortunate that until now the debate has focused on the issue of a referendum. That is the secondary issue. The much bigger question is whether this agreement will be sufficient to save the euro and prevent the type of chaos and pandemonium that would ensue from a eurozone collapse.

I read in The Financial Times of last week excellent commentary which set out starkly the terrible consequences of a eurozone collapse. The author suggests that even a partial euro area break-up, involving the exit of one or more fiscally and competitively weak countries, including Ireland, would be chaotic. He also stated that a full break-up, with the euro area splintering into a greater Deutschemark zone and other national currencies, would create pandemonium. This illustrated for me the stark situation in which we find ourselves.

I will return to the agreement later and will now take a few minutes to comment on the complete turnaround at European level, on which we must reflect. We are now looking to external countries, in particular the BRIC countries, to provide aid to eurozone countries and members of the EU, which is a complete turnaround in a few short years. It is a conundrum because the quality of lives of citizens within the EU remains much better than it is for many citizens in the BRIC and other external countries. This is testament to the strength of the social Europe model, a model which provides strongly regulated markets. The Nordic model is usually held up as the primary example of this. Things have been better in the northern countries. None of the PIGS are Nordic, to put it bluntly. Therefore, joining the EU remains extremely attractive to countries like Croatia. I join others in welcoming the news of Croatia's accession and in welcoming the announcement by the President of the European Council, Mr. Von Rompuy, that timelines for the potential accession of Serbia and Montenegro have been identified. As someone with family from the Balkans I welcome this. It is important to note that despite the crisis facing the European Union, there are countries actively engaging in signing up to it.

For those of us in Ireland who are pro-Europe, it is important to reflect on these bigger issues and on the fact that a lack of European regulation, along with our disastrous national policies, in terms of the creation of the property bubble, led us to the situation we are in. We are all conscious of the need for stronger regulation of lending by European banks and, therefore, stronger regulation at European level, which points to a need for more rather than less Europe. I join Senator Zappone in welcoming the news that there will be a re-engineering of our bank-related debt, in respect of which the Minister of State might, perhaps, provide more clarification.

In regard to the fiscal compact of last week it must be noted that there is not as yet any legal text. The terms of the fiscal compact are as yet foggy. The expression being used is "foggy contours". When I first heard the expression "fiscal compact with firewalls" I thought it sounded like an elaborate make-up case or some type of cosmetic term.