Neale Richmond (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Losing the EBA bid is not an ordinary defeat. To paraphrase another sportsman, one never loses, one learns. The Irish negotiating team will learn a lot from the bidding process. I genuinely and wholeheartedly commend the Minister of State present, the Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Helen McEntee, and the entire team behind the bid. It is a great achievement for Ireland to reach the final two, particularly as so many countries applied and financial services is a large area. It offers huge potential for Ireland and Dublin going forward in the post-Brexit era of the European Union, particularly in the area of financial services and finance. The sector has been stressed so many times and not just by the Government, which the Minister of State is a part of. As I have said 1 million times, Brexit is a disaster and will be terrible for this country. We must grasp any sliver of opportunity or chance with both hands to offset the overall negativity. The financial services sector will present us with opportunities.

I know how hyperactive the Minister of State is and how his predecessor, the current Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Murphy, was in attracting financial services not just to Dublin but to Ireland as a whole. I say this as somebody who is Dublin based and sometimes shivered when I went outside the M50 for a Seanad campaign. The importance of attracting financial services to the entire Twenty-Six Counties is vitally important. At the moment only one third of our financial services are located outside Dublin. Some people will be surprised by that fact. One only has to point to FEXCO that is located in Senator Mark Daly's home county of Kerry. There are many more examples of financial companies being located throughout the country be they in Waterford, Carrick-on-Suir or wherever else. That is where the potential lies be they in back office or front office opportunities.

I truly believe that the showing by the Irish Government and the Irish bid in the EBA process will stand to us. At the end of the day the decision was made by the toss of a coin. Ireland was in the final against Paris, which has a massive financial centre. I remember reading about the CAC 40, the French stock exchange, during my geography exams in school and everything else in my class on business organisation. I hope that everyone appreciates that it is an achievement for Ireland to get so far in the bidding process. There is no point saying, "Ah, well. We did not get it so why did we even bother?" It was worth going for and presents us with an opportunity to put what we have learned into the process.

There is one area which moves beyond finance and into the whole dynamic of the internal politics of the European Union. I refer to the countries that supported our bid. It was an impressive achievement for Ireland to reach the final round and an awful lot of diplomatic engagement was required. The countries that supported us are now our new allies. The Taoiseach and the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade have said at length that we must develop relationships with our new allies. It is quite obvious in certain areas such as agricultural policy and the historic ties between Ireland and France when defending the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP. Let us consider the small member states, newer member states and member states to the east that want to embrace some of the taxation measures that we have introduced as a country.

When it comes to guaranteeing solid financial systems and services within the European Union we must answer the following. Who are our allies? Who can we go to again? Who will support us when we go to the next round of multi-annual financial framework discussions for 2021? Will these allies support Ireland again? Most importantly, how can we lead? Just because Ireland is a small country with a population of 4.6 million citizens does not mean we cannot play an important role in the European project and lead it post-Brexit. Ireland will be the only English speaking country in the EU after 2019 and, indeed, we will be the only country that will have a common law jurisdiction. Such a situation will provide a lot of interactions. We can lead. We can look beyond the original six member states of the European Coal and Steel Community. We can look at smaller member states. We can look at member states which have fought for independence in their own way much like we did. We should ask ourselves why we should not lead. We have been in the club for over 40 years and have been good Europeans. We are leading at this stage of the Brexit process so let us lead the financial services sector when it comes to Europe post-2019.

Again, I commend the Minister of State on his efforts and sincerely thank him for them.