It removes landmines for children.

Sentiment score: 0.00

It trains people to remove landmines.

Sentiment score: 0.00

I thank all the Deputies for their contributions to this important regular debate, particularly those who have placed very pertinent questions that I will try to answer as thoroughly possible in the time available to me. I will start with the issue of Irish unity and how Europe relates to that as raised in questions by Deputies Ó Laoghaire, Ó Murchú and Gould and, indeed, in their party leader's opening intervention. One thing that is important when we talk about the constitutional future of our nation is how Europe fits into that. Referred to by their party leader, but without much detail, was the agreement by the European Council, which was the first European Council subsequent to the fateful Brexit referendum that Deputy O'Donoghue spoke about in some detail. The fact is it was former Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, who secured the absolute acceptance from the European Council that when or if - I hope it is when - our nation is reunited, it will automatically be a united state within the European Union. There is no question there. That is quite simple. If we go on the journey, the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland calls a border poll and we have ratification of a united Ireland North and South, that will be an Ireland part of the European Union. That is it. That is the first and most important thing. That is a case that is raised repeatedly with me by people from the North who say, "We did not vote for Brexit. We certainly did not vote to lose our European citizenship". Thankfully, most of them have Irish passports and they are able to retain their European citizenship, but they are no longer in the EU jurisdiction. That is the first and last discussion when it comes to Europe. There were a couple of subsequent things raised by Deputy Gould that are worth reflecting on. We talk about European funding. Europe is not going to pay for unity. We have to be quite clear about the status of the economy at this point, for example, of the Republic. At this stage, we are a net contributor to the European Union. Even based on the current economic forecasts and the status of the North in terms of employment, we would still be a net contributor as a united Ireland. That is a mark of something we should be proud of. We spent so long - decades - receiving huge amounts of structural and cohesion funding because when we joined the European Economic Community we were, in many arguments, what was then known as a Third World country. We are not like that, certainly not in this jurisdiction. When we take any European mapping pre-Brexit and post Brexit, the part of this island that is, perhaps, in need of the biggest focus of co-ordinated support would be the Border region. Deputy Ó Murchú has raised this very eloquently. That is why it is about the importance of retaining programmes, such as PEACEPLUS, which celebrated its thirtieth anniversary in Iveagh House ten days ago, receiving over €1 billion in European funding to drive projects North and South that deliver real levels of community building, reconciliation and some sort of move away from the societal and economic harm that years of conflict led to on this island. I take the point made more widely. Regarding the Scottish referendum, the two issues that really focused that was what Scotland's status would be. We saw the former President of the European Commission, José Barroso, pour cold water in that there was no guarantee that Scotland would automatically be part of the European Union. They could not decide among themselves in the "Yes" campaign whether they would have a new form of sterling or a currency pegged to sterling or adopt the euro. That is not an issue for us. We join the European Union and we join the euro. It is simple as. The Deputy said that is not an issue for us to decide, but they are the rules and those are the rules that are in our interests as well as our responsibility. Moving more broadly into the areas raised by Deputes Ó Laoghaire and Gibney into Aughinish Alumina relating to the status quo and where we are, I recognise the vote in the European Parliament. It was not just Fine Gael's political grouping. It was all four of our MEPs who voted in that direction. Again, I cannot speak for my coalition partners but I will invite them to, perhaps, take the Deputy up on her kind offer. Regarding the status quo from a Government point of view, we have a twentieth sanctions package. We have supported every single one of the sanction packages where alumina is not listed. We are moving towards a twenty-first package. It must be noted that the independent accreditation audit, for want of a better word, by former Secretary-General of the European Commission, David O'Sullivan, has consistently stated that Ireland is one of the top countries for implementing the sanctions. Alumina is not a sanctioned material. That is simply a statement of fact. It may be in a twenty-first package of negotiations. More pertinently to the Deputy's questions, very real charges have been placed in The Irish Times and by other investigative journalists stating that the amounts of alumina being produced from Aughinish are going indirectly to the Russian war machine. If that is the case, it is completely unacceptable. There is currently a Government investigation being led by the Department of Enterprise, Tourism and Employment. Deputy Ó Laoghaire asked about what sort of conversations are happening with the Commission. Any sort of investigation requires a member state government to maintain regular contact with the Commission in terms of the status of the investigation. This is not a straightforward investigation. We have already seen the reporting that the CSO figures have been withdrawn and there are complications there. We see months of investigative journalists' work leading to, perhaps, areas of the supply chain. When the investigation is produced, the Government is open to all suggestions and working with the European Commission to a future, bearing in mind the very real economic impact and the importance of jobs in the region, but also our very clear obligations to ensure that we have no complicity in the Russian war machine and its campaign of terror on the Ukrainian people. To go back to Deputy Gould's points in relation to the Coady family and access to medicines, it is a harrowing case. My heart goes out to the entire family. Of course, we know that when medicines go to the European Medicines Agency, they then have to be verified on a domestic level as well. Part of the subsidiarity mechanism is making sure that it is fit for purpose, such as a medicine or treatment that may be in available in other EU members states that is not yet perhaps available here in Ireland. We have all heard about and had constituents who had to travel to the Netherlands or Germany to receive treatments, for example, with new cancer drugs or whatever may be the case. However, as that is of little comfort to the Coady family, what I can commit to is that I will engage directly with the Minister, Deputy Carroll MacNeill, and see through her offices what the status is with the domestic regulation and implementation of this drug, bearing in mind the need to do this as quickly as possible given the situation facing the Coady family.

Sentiment score: 0.12

It is the same with every medicine, treatment or equipment used in medical advice. It gets approved on a European basis and then has to be approved. It is just like when we pass legislation at a European level, it has to be transposed into domestic legislation. I take the Deputy's point, however, that it is not quick enough. When other member states are doing it quicker than us, that is something we need to reflect on. It goes to the point more broadly of competitiveness and the interests of the competitiveness agenda in delivering for citizens. I wish to close on two points in my very brief time. I apologise; I do not perhaps have as much time as I would like to go into them. In relation to the situation in Gaza, the genocide and Ireland's approach at a European level, we were the first member state, along with Spain, to ask for the EU-Israel Association Agreement to be reopened. It is our position that the trade element should be suspended in its entirety. I recall the first time it was brought up only three member states backed us. In May, I attended a European Council meeting where we got that to 19 member states. A sanctions package was produced last September. The Minister, Deputy McEntee, has this on the agenda for the Foreign Affairs Council meeting next week and will continue to push this vigorously as we engage, which was discussed in our debate more broadly yesterday evening. On Deputy Gibney's point on values from her opening iteration and how that reflects her subsequent question, peace is the top value. Peace is a value. Peace defines European values. It is why we repeatedly refer to values in the European Union. It can be everything to do with AI regulation and making sure that it is a human generating aspect. This is a peace project. I am delighted we agree on that. One would argue that if you believe in peace, you have to prepare to pay to defend that peace. The Deputy is right that I do not agree with the Government's position on military neutrality. I would much rather that we were doing other things, but we are not. That is not only because it is the collective Government agreement, but it is the position of my political party, this Dáil and the Irish people. However, supporting the people of Ukraine to build and purchase defensive systems and to clear landmines is compatible with that policy of military neutrality. Making sure we have real spending on security is just common sense, particularly when we are seeking to protect peace. We are not in an era where Europe is spending more on defence than ever before. Per capita, it is actually much lower than it was in the seventies and eighties.

Sentiment score: 0.33

I will make a few concluding remarks to follow on from some of the points made by the Taoiseach in his opening iteration because in his 20 minutes he did not cover them all. In regard to the items discussed at the June European Council meeting, as we just finished off on the crucial issue of European defence, it was revisited at the meeting and leaders took stock of progress on the implementation of the defence readiness roadmap. Of course, security is one of Ireland's overarching priorities and that is why we will continue to take forward the European defence readiness agenda. Deputies have rightly said, and perhaps criticised, that countries across the union are investing more in their national security and defence capabilities. Deputy O'Donoghue rightly charged that Ireland needs to do more in this regard, and we are. Even though we will retain a central policy of military neutrality, we can work with European partners to make sure security and defence are there, particularly with the Council's urgent call for efforts to strengthen resilience, enhance preparedness, protect critical infrastructure and prevent, deter and respond to hybrid attacks, bearing in mind this jurisdiction was subject to a hybrid attack on our health system not that long ago. In respect of migration and following on from the entry into force of the EU migration and asylum pact on 12 June, despite Deputy O'Flynn's charges this is something that was voted on by the democratically elected representatives of the people in Dáil Éireann. Leaders discussed the ongoing challenges presented by irregular and unplanned migration and looked at the progress on the legislative agenda calling for intensification of this work. They will have a strategic discussion on migration at their next meeting in October. Ireland is fully committed to the implementation of the pact, which will provide a consistent, fair, sustainable, humane and efficient asylum procedure and upgrade the common European asylum system. It will create an asylum service that is transparent, fair and aligned with other member states. The trade in illicit drugs orchestrated by organised crime groups poses a serious challenge to European security and the well-being, crucially, of our citizens. The June European Council meeting committed to jointly operationalising the EU drugs strategy 2026-2030 and addressed the harms caused by illicit drugs. This EU drugs strategy implementation framework provides an opportunity to address gaps identified in the evaluation of the previous strategy while also optimising the use of existing measures and tools. As chair of the horizontal working group on drugs for the next six months, Ireland is committed to progressing the implementation framework for the EU drugs strategy. The Taoiseach spoke at length about Ukraine and Deputy Lawless raised what I would classify, quite frankly, as misplaced concerns about enlargement of the European Union, bearing in mind the last time Ireland had the Presidency in 2013 it was the eve of Croatia joining the European Union. More famously, and the Leas-Cheann Comhairle was part of the Government at the time, in 2004 we hosted the day of welcomes when the European Union expanded to ten member states. For many of us that symbolised the real end - in many ways the belated end - of the Cold War when most of those countries who were former Soviet satellite states were able to embrace the European Union and liberal western democracies. Like Ukraine, Moldavia's future is in Europe. The opening of the first cluster in Moldova's accession negotiations on 15 June was warmly welcomed by leaders, as was the first EU-Moldova summit that took place on 22 June. While holding the Presidency, we will work to open all remaining clusters by the end of the Irish Presidency. Other items addressed in the June European Council conclusions included the western Balkans and Armenia, as well as efforts to help stop the spread of the Ebola virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, as raised by Deputy Ó Laoghaire last week. The conclusions adopted at the June European Council also reaffirmed the EU's support for the institutions upholding international law. They also took note of recent EU strategies for islands and coastal communities and referred to discussions on the integrated country-specific recommendations, enabling the 2026 European semester to be concluded. We are one week into our Presidency of the Council of the European Union. Over the coming months, we will act impartially serving as an honest broker among our fellow member states to progress many files in areas that were raised here today. Our work will respond to the overall interests and needs of the union, its member states and citizens across Europe. The Government will continue to keep the House informed about progress with our Presidency programme and I really look forward to future discussions with Deputies. The Taoiseach laid out that he will be addressing COSAC next week. This is a great opportunity and as someone, like Deputy Ó Murchú, who travelled to many COSAC meetings during membership of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on European Union Affairs, I know this is where parliamentarians are given the best ability to contribute to the European Union's legislative agenda. It is crucially important that Oireachtas Members from all parties and none, and from both Houses, engage fully, not just in the Presidency today but in using it to make sure our focus on Europe and European Union affairs is a bedrock of our democratic discussion.

Sentiment score: 0.29