Sharon Keogan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will speak on the threat of tariffs being imposed on Ireland by the United States, ahead of tomorrow’s announcement from Washington. While I hope for the best, it must be serious if the Taoiseach is publicly claiming that the effects could be disastrous. The Taoiseach said it is important "that we don't invite more damage in our response". I would like to know exactly how we could invite any more damage, short of a declaration of war against the United States. The Taoiseach stopped short of giving an endorsement to Kamala Harris. The Tánaiste still has a photo on his Instagram of his Kamala Harris campaign hat, while the former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was happy to have couples’ dinners with her and her husband. While it is wrong in principle to involve yourself in another country’s politics, it is even worse to back the losing horse.

Our political leaders have behaved with horrendous statesmanship and diplomatic acumen for years. However, we must also realise these tariffs pose an existential threat because of a long-running problem driven by negligence and naivety in our national economic planning. For over 30 years, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have allowed us to fall into total dependence on US foreign direct investment and ignored a host of warnings that we needed to diversify and invest in our own industries. It is as if our leadership believed free trade would continue forever, despite the rest of the world trending towards protectionism for nearly a decade. The Minister, Deputy Calleary, claimed "nobody wants tariffs", but this is factually wrong. Millions of ordinary Americans want tariffs. They have watched their industries slowly drift out of their country over the past 50 years and last year, they gave President Trump a popular majority because he promised to bring that industry back with tariffs. The Government highlights that we will use EU leverage to blunt the worst effects of the tariffs, but has everyone forgotten that the foundation of the EU is the customs union? The EU is the EU because we impose tariffs on just about every state that is not in it. We need much more than a rainy day fund, because we now face a torrent that threatens to wash away the poor foundations we have built our economy on.