Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I also extend a warm welcome to the President who opened his address by speaking very positively about the nature of our membership of the European Union. It was understood it was about the pooling of sovereignty. While there continues to be a very strong commitment to membership of the European Union, that confidence was badly shattered during the economic crash when there was a feeling there was an intergovernmental approach whereby each individual country looked to itself and we felt very isolated. That experience has resulted in scepticism about Ireland coming first in the Brexit negotiations. Therefore, we need to deal in realities, not just hopes.

The President talked about the possibility of there being no deal. Will he expand on exactly what he means in terms of how it might play out? It will impact on every country, but no country will be impacted on more than Ireland. We know that eleventh hour negotiations are about compromise. There is a playing for time to create that scenario in the case of the British Government.

Our focus is on survival, but the focus needs to move to something more than survival where we will see a more democratic European Union that will not be undermined by populism. There are very real issues which are about inequality and a lack of democracy.