He sometimes cuts it fine, so I hope he will be here shortly. I welcome the opportunity to make these statements to celebrate Europe Day because I am a proud European. It is important to remember and celebrate the very positive influence European Union membership had has on Irish society, as did, prior to European Union membership, co-operation with European member states post war and post conflict. I want to emphasise first that this is for me a really heartbreaking moment, whereby what started as a peace project in post-war Europe - the European Union was called something different then - to end and prevent conflict between European nations and to prevent wider global conflict is at a point where we are now approaching essentially a European defence union and the level of militarisation in the European Union - the Minister of State shakes his head at me and at other speakers-----

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Excuse me. These are not scare stories.

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This is not misinformation or scare stories.

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I am the people of Ireland and I am frightened by the level of militarisation the EU is pursuing. The fact that the multi-annual financial framework has pivoted towards rewarding arms manufacturers over small and medium businesses and that the countries that will benefit most from that are the largest countries in Europe that have those weapons industries is so far removed from the social cohesion and promotion of democracy this Union was started for. Of course, I am afraid and fearful, and it is absolutely right that we call it out. This Government's version of EU membership is to blindly follow that, to go with the EPP and Renew Europe groupings' vision of what this EU should be. Instead, we could be a vital voice. Ireland is one of only 27 members of this Union and we could be a vital voice, that same voice we heard in John Hume, one that talks about peace, solidarity, cohesion and democracy. I was at the launch of the European Movement Ireland survey yesterday. The values of the EU were captured in that survey as being democracy, equality, rule of law and human rights. It is my opinion that we have drifted far from those values in the pursuit of appeasing big business through deregulation across the EU and increased militarisation and military spending. If it upsets the Minister of State that I come into the Dáil Chamber and say that, then I am sorry but he will have to deal with it. I will touch on something I raised last week, which was dismissed as not being relevant to the post-European Council statements, even though there was a relevant post-European Council statement on this matter. It is the Irish attack on the European Convention on Human Rights. Only couple of years ago, the Government criticised the UK for its attack on the ECHR, yet only a few months ago, the Government joined in that attack. The European Convention on Human Rights has done nothing but bring good for all the states that signed up to it. This Government, along with others, is happy to start hacking away at it, in an attack on the separation of powers, which I think is just incredible, and judicial independence. It is politicising the entire process at a time when we have an active inter-state case based on the third article of the ECHR - we had two successful inter-state cases before that - and when we know the ECHR is what underpins the Good Friday Agreement and peace on this island. I asked the Minister of State about this last week and he dismissed it but I want to, again, be reassured of this Government's commitment to the ECHR and the European Court of Human Rights and that it will not pursue the Chișinău process and deviate from it.

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