Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I echo the inquiries made of the Leader by Senators Grace O'Sullivan and Padraig Mac Lochlainn in respect of the Seanad reform process. We need some clarity on this issue.

The main thing I want to say is that I echo what Senator Neale Richmond had to say about the need for this House to have a really good debate on Ireland's approach to the future of Europe. When one looks at Emmanuel Macron and his words yesterday, most of what he is proposing is deeply hostile to Ireland's interests. It is about time people started saying so in public. There are such-and-such class battleships and such-and-such class destroyers. I refer to him and some other Heads of State as Bambi-class politicians. They are photogenic and seem to be cleaner than clean, but they come from nowhere. He is an accident of the French political system. Were it not for the fact that the front runner for the Republicans in France made an absolute mess of his campaign, Emmanuel Macron would never have surfaced. When push came to shove, his views on Europe were a minority view in France. Some 80% of the votes cast in the primaries for the French presidential election were cast for people who radically disagreed with his agenda for Europe - the extreme left candidate and the two other candidates, including Marine Le Pen.

It is about time that we stand up to the European federalists who are trying to push Europe down the road to a united states of Europe. Guy Verhofstadt has written a book which says that we need to create a united states of Europe with a single army and a single this and a single that. The great majority of Irish people are wholly opposed to these kinds of proposals. Our Constitution prohibits us from participating, for instance, in European defence. Let us get real for a change. Let us have a real debate in this House, not a Punch and Judy show where those who are totally against Europe and those who are totally for a federalist Europe knock holes in each other, but a debate for the great majority of decent, sensible people who realise that Europe should continue as an intergovernmental partnership of nation states and who realise that is the model we want. Let us have an opportunity for Members on every side of this House to express their views honestly on these issues rather than keeping ourselves, through some process of self-censorship, enthralled to people who have extremist views of a federalist kind.