Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

As others have done, I compliment the Minister of State, Deputy McEntee, for the manner in which she has personally handled the issue, especially in the media and at the wrong end of probing questions from doubting and sometimes hostile interviewers from a neighbouring jurisdiction. She has remained calm, cool, objective and persuasive at all times. I agree with what has been said about her and add that her performances make one proud to be a Member of the Irish Parliament, compared with some other parliaments which I will not name.

Like everybody else in the House, I hope for a soft Brexit if there must be a Brexit. I regard Brexit as a disaster which should never have happened. Although one may look to the unity of the Tory Party through decades of hostile press treatment of the EU in Britain and to the cynicism with which a referendum was offered to the electorate as immediate causes for Brexit happening, it is a superficial understanding. One of the reasons Brexit took place was that a small minority in Europe continued to press a case for federalism against the wishes and inclinations of the great majority of the people of Europe. I recently noticed that the President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, stated he was now combating negative nationalism throughout Europe, and he called for an increase in integration as the antidote to disintegration. It is not so simple, however, and he should ask himself why it was that the then French President, François Hollande, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the then Prime Minister of Italy, Matteo Renzi, stood on an aircraft carrier deck on the island of Ventotene, off the coast of Italy, while Mr. Renzi announced that he would use Italy's six-month Presidency of the Council of the European Union to pursue a United States of Europe. These people must take responsibilty for the reactions they provoked.

The same applies to the German Chancellor, Ms Merkel, whose handling of the immigration and refugee crisis in the context of the Syrian civil war was a mistake and produced a reaction in vast swathes of central Europe. The same also applies to those people who persist in pursuing the European super state, that is, the federal solution, when it is not a cause which carries the support of a majority in any member state of the European Union, all the way from Germany to Greece to Ireland. This concept of Europe is producing a reaction. What is wrong with Europe as it is? Why must we constantly create this kind of false struggle between scepticism on the one hand and federalism on the other, when the great majority of the peoples of the European member states have a different vision of Europe in which it is a partnership of sovereign states which pool their sovereignty to some extent but retain it for other purposes? This tragedy has been visited on us not merely by reactionary elements in Britain and by negative elements of British politics. The counterbalance and necessary condition for that was the constant reference to an ever closer Union and to federalist proposals such as a European army and so on, which were anathema to the great majority of the British people. Having said that, given that the British people have voted to leave the European Union in a referendum offered to them, if the British Parliament is determined to implement that referendum's outcome, it is in our clear interest that it should be as soft a Brexit as possible.That applies no matter what way one looks at the issue. In that malign scenario, the deal which Prime Minister May has negotiated seems to be the best of a bad lot, which should attract our support. In that sense, I wish her every good fortune in her parliamentary struggles but it is really the lesser of two evils and I believe that the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union is a disaster for many reasons, especially for this country. Now we come to what is happening in Westminster today. I share with the Minister, Senator Ned O'Sullivan and nearly everybody in this House the view that we should still hope that the worst will not happen and that a no-deal Brexit will not arise out of the parliamentary process in Westminster. The obvious way to avoid a no-deal Brexit is to accept the deal that is on offer. Listening to DUP spokesmen, however, especially to the contribution of Nigel Dodds in the House of Commons, it became clear to me that there is very little appetite for Prime Minister May's deal on those benches.