Joint Committee on European Union Affairs debate -
Wednesday, 25 Sep 2024

On behalf of the committee I welcome the Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs and defence, Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill. Today's discussion is on the latest developments at the General Affairs Council. The Minister of State is very welcome. I believe it is her first time to join us in this committee in her role. Before we kick off I will give the usual notification on privileges, which I will rattle through. All witness are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of that person or entity.

Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in respect of an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I remind members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of Leinster House to participate in public meetings. I cannot permit a member to participate where he or she is not adhering to this requirement. Therefore, any member who attempts to participate from outside the precincts will be asked to leave.

With the housekeeping out of the way, I call the Minister of State to make her opening statement.

I am very happy to appear before this committee for the first time as Minister of State for European affairs and defence. I sent this statement yesterday. I was writing it from the General Affairs Council to try to encompass yesterday's work, so if I have to deviate slightly to provide further updates, I am sure members will forgive me. I look forward to discussing the issues arising from the GAC with the committee.

The importance of EU engagement and a strong commitment to multilateralism is particularly important at this time of global upheaval. The past five decades have witnessed Ireland’s emergence as a modern and open economy and society, shaped by close reciprocal co-operation with our European partners. I congratulate Commissioner-designate Michael McGrath on his nomination as EU Commissioner for Democracy, Justice and Rule of Law. He is a dedicated and experienced politician whom we all know, and he is qualified to make the best decisions in the interest of Europe in a portfolio at an especially important juncture, which we may discuss further.

Since taking up my position in April, I have attended five meetings of the General Affairs Council. Three of these were formal meetings held on 21 May, 25 June and 24 September. I also participated in two informal meetings, the first in Brussels in April and the second on 3 September last in Budapest. All of these occasions provided an important opportunity to meet colleagues and fellow EU affairs ministers and, indeed, to advance different issues of interest on the margins of those different meetings. I am happy to provide updates on those to the committee.

Prior to the informal GAC in Budapest, I had the opportunity to attend the Bled Strategic Forum in Slovenia. That event proved a vital means of strengthening relations with like-minded EU member states and engaging on topics of strategic importance including, and most importantly, EU enlargement, which remains a priority for this Government. This was the focus of the strategic forum in Bled and the meetings surrounding that. I then joined just 14 other EU affairs ministers at the informal GAC on 3 September in Budapest. This informal meeting was an opportunity for honest and forthright exchanges on competitiveness, improving the process of law-making, and demography. Again, we will discuss this in more detail with the committee but it is important to say that it was a careful decision to go to the informal GAC in circumstances where others were not going to some of the informal meetings in Hungary. My and our choice was that I would go to take the opportunity to stress the importance of rule of law and democracy in Budapest to the Presidency, particularly how developments in this area serve as a bedrock for individual rights. While in Hungary I also met with and heard the concerns, very importantly, of civil society in Hungary. I heard what people's experiences have been over recent months and years and how this has changed, especially in the areas of press freedom, treatment of refugees and the LGBTQI+ community.

Following these engagements in Hungary, I engaged in a series of bilateral meetings with counterparts in Helsinki, Vilnius and Tallinn. During these bilateral meetings I was particularly struck by, and went was because I concerned about, the ongoing and increasing difficulties in the areas of security and defence that have arisen from Russia's increasing aggression. I took the opportunity alongside my bilateral meetings and consultations to attend a briefing at the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats in Helsinki, to visit the National Crisis Management Centre in Lithuania and to have a briefing at both the Belarusian-Lithuanian and the Estonian-Russian borders. I also visited the centre of excellence for cybersecurity in Tallinn.

I was also delighted to attend the most recent meeting of the GAC in Brussels yesterday and I am happy to share updates from that meeting. The first agenda item was a presentation on the priorities of the Hungarian Presidency. There was an important horizontal discussion on the rule of law and a discussion with four accession countries, namely, Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia, about their rule of law progress. A major part of the discussion was the preparation for the European Council meeting on 17 and 18 October. We will have a further opportunity to discuss that at the GAC before then. Setting out our stall in advance of that council meeting, I took the opportunity to raise the ongoing catastrophic situation in Sudan and proposed we consider discussion of it to be included on the agenda for the European Council meeting. The gravity of the humanitarian situation meant it was important it be raised. The scale of violence against civilians in Sudan demands our urgent engagement. It is also important to say a Spanish colleague raised the situation in Venezuela. Different people were raising different issues of international concern.

The situation in Ukraine continues to be an issue of the most serious concern for European leaders. At the GAC, I stressed Ireland’s position, again emphasising the importance that our focus remains on Ukraine and that the October European Council continues to send a clear message, including in practical terms, about the EU’s commitment to providing comprehensive and multifaceted support to Ukraine. Nowhere is that more important than broad, especially energy, security coming into the wintertime in Ukraine, which is an exceptionally difficult thing to do when your energy installations have been hit quite as badly as they have been by Russia.

Of great importance both to Ireland and to Europe is the situation in the Middle East. That was also due for discussion by the European Council but I took the opportunity to reiterate the Irish position that we very much hope negotiations on a ceasefire, a hostage release deal and unfettered humanitarian access to people in Gaza would have been successfully concluded by the time we actually reach the October European Council. However, just yesterday, as we all saw minute by minute and hour by hour, the situation became more difficult with the escalation in southern Lebanon and northern Israel. The scale of bombardment has been extreme. Last week’s use of communication devices as booby traps has been widely condemned as a violation of international humanitarian law. It is also important to say this has been an escalating situation for nearly a year. Therefore, we are well aware of the circumstances related to it, but as we were discussing in the European Council, it was very clear this situation was escalating all the time.

The European Council will also discuss competitiveness, specifically the publication of the Draghi report, as well as some of the country-specific recommendations and the conclusion of the 2024 European semester. I took the opportunity to note that Ireland welcomes the publication of the Draghi report. We have a body of work to do within Government to prepare our own submission and recommendations in October, and that work continues. There is quite a lot of detailed work between different Departments on that at the moment. It is fair to say we share the view that Europe faces a competitiveness challenge which necessitates some fresh thinking and new policies to stimulate growth, innovation and investment.

The European Council may also address recent political developments in Georgia and Moldova, as I hope it will. I reiterated Irish support for Moldova’s EU membership aspirations while noting that it has an exceptionally important referendum coming up in the coming weeks in respect of EU membership. I also noted strongly that Georgia simply cannot continue on its path to EU membership based on recent political developments, which we strongly take the view do not reflect the will of the broader people but have been steps by a Government that is taking the people of Georgia further away from rather than closer to EU membership. There is also an important election coming up in Georgia.

The GAC also discussed two rule of law items. First was the horizontal discussion on the annual rule of law dialogue across the EU. Ireland outlined its support for the Commission’s annual rule of law reporting process and welcomed further details from the Commission on the plan to incorporate Single Market dimensions in future rule of law reporting processes. It is important to say where Ireland is on that. We have made strong progress on all of the measures that have been identified to us. There are two on which we need to continue to do more work but there are nine where we have very clearly made progress. We are operating at a very high level within this context and framework. There are others who have much more significant challenges to meet the standards of rule of law, but it is very important that we, as a Parliament, Government and State within the EU, continually hold ourselves to account on rule of law matters and do not enable any space for perceptions of independence to be diminished or allow any space for damage to our democracy. Therefore, it is very important we are participating in this process and openly holding ourselves to account in the way we ask others to.

The GAC also held a discussion on the general rule of law situation in Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, countries which were all included in rule of law reporting process for the first time. It was with great pleasure that we saw those colleagues come to the GAC, sit at the table and present their updates and some country-specific context about their experience of working with the Commission but also domestically in trying to meet the standards that have been set and, in doing that, the challenges they face within very different and, occasionally, very difficult political circumstances.

The message from Ireland was one of encouragement and support. We are a strong supporter of enlargement and recognise the scale of the challenges some of those countries face, so it was a message of encouragement. I would be happy to address all of these and take members' questions.

I thank the Minister of State for a broad-ranging presentation. I will deal with four areas. First, the issue that has focused all of us, and everybody in the world, is the ongoing and disintegrating situation in the Middle East. We are horrified, and have been for a year, by the carnage in Gaza. We seem to be moving further away from a ceasefire there, especially now there is the escalation in Lebanon. Will the Minister of State give us an Irish perspective on the worsening situation in Lebanon? Overnight, there has been an increased exchange of rockets with long-range rockets fired by Hezbollah that were intended to reach Tel Aviv. What is the situation with regard to Irish citizens and their dependants in Lebanon? Is there a plan to provide an evacuation route for them should they decide to leave, and does that include their dependants? She might also, as Minister of State, even without particular responsibility for defence, make reference to our troops. People will be anxious to know they are completely safe. In the event of a ground invasion, what is the contingency, if she is in a position to explain that to us?

My second question relates to the new Commission and in particular the appointment of a new defence Commissioner. The defence Commissioner nominated is the former Lithuanian Prime Minister, Andrius Kubilius, who has stated that he hopes to raise billions of euro, including by the issuing of joint euro bonds, to fund and encourage a European defence industry. What is our attitude to the role? Has the Minister of State had discussions with the Commission President on the role of this defence Commissioner and how it will relate to Ireland and our neutral position? What is our position on the issuing of joint euro bonds by a defence Commissioner? A related issue is a letter to Mr. Kubilius by Commission President von der Leyen, where she asked him to work closely with the new policy chief, Kaja Kallas. Both are senior Baltic politicians; with a perspective the Minister of State understands is understandably focused on Russian aggression. However, I am thinking in terms of its implications for European foreign policy because in that letter, the Commission President asked Mr. Kubilius to work with Ms Kallas to produce a common paper on defence for Europe as a priority once they are both ratified. I am interested in her take on that.

My third question, on which I will be brief, refers to the rule of law, which will now hopefully be the responsibility of Commissioner McGrath. I think the Minister of State was right to go to the GAC meeting and voice a view rather than abstain. I represented this committee at the first COSAC in Budapest at the start of the Hungarian Presidency. I must say I was taken aback by the stridency of their views on these matters as articulated by their Deputy Prime Minister. We need to be clear on that. I am interested in the Minister of State's policy approach to ensure the rule of law is not further eroded.

My fourth question is on the Draghi paper on competitiveness. The Minister of State said the Government endorsed and welcomed it. One of the concerns we have is the relaxation of state aid rules. I looked at the statistics on it and in the relaxation that has already taken place, the capacity of France and Germany in particular to greatly support domestic industries will put Ireland at a great disadvantage. How does she propose to address that issue?

It is no difficulty. However, as I think of further information, I might provide it because I want to do the best I can to answer across the board. I will take them in turn, starting with the Middle East situation and what has happened in Lebanon. We are deeply concerned about the escalating violence in the Middle East. It is hard to say, but the committee will be aware that there are fairly limited things we can do to influence this except to use our voice and our diplomatic channels. There are probably few politicians more vocal about the situation in the Middle East than Simon Harris, Micheál Martin and the President, all of whom are in the UN using those diplomatic channels in every way possible to try to de-escalate violence and to protect civilian life and humanitarian concerns. That is Ireland's position. We take this enormously seriously in Ireland, but we must always remember how we are viewed externally, and we are viewed as absolute advocates for the people of Palestine and for peace more generally, including for people in Israel who want to see peace. That is so important, as is the return of the hostages and peace in Lebanon. That is our stance. There is a limited amount we can do beyond using diplomatic channels to call for calm and restraint.

The Deputy asked about Irish people in Lebanon. There is a small number of Irish people remaining in Lebanon. We have been urging people to leave for nearly a year now. We remind people to register with the embassy in Cairo. It is managed through Egypt. We want to know if people are there. We know about a small number of people who are there. We are encouraging people to leave. There are commercial options to leave at this point, and we stay in touch with them all of the time. However, it is a small number of people. We simply have to see where the situation goes and continue our engagement with them and encourage them to leave, where possible, and recognise there are different family circumstances that may or may not make that desirable or possible. Everybody's situation is different. I assure the Deputy we are completely engaged, insofar as we know, with the people who are there. We encourage any people we are not aware of to please make contact with our embassy in Cairo.

The Deputy is quite right to highlight the importance of our troops in Lebanon. We have 382 people - 368 troops - there under the care of Lieutenant Colonel Tom Fox from the 124th Battalion. They continue to do their job as best they can. It is important to say they are professionally trained soldiers who have been taking shelter, as appropriate, in different circumstances for a long time now. They continue to take shelter. They also continue, within difficult constraints and circumstances, to try to exercise their mission and mandate insofar as possible. I recognise that is becoming increasingly difficult. The mission is a collective mission, so decisions are taken at that level, but I assure the Deputy there is constant contact with our Defence Forces, with the families of our Defence Forces members, and that the situation is under near continual review. Our priority of course is the protection of our troops. I do not want to give the impression that is only our priority. Their priority is the execution of their mission and I have such respect for them in that regard.

On the new Commission, it is a different shape and a different Commission this time than last time. That reflects the difference politically in Europe since 2019 and quite how much has changed. I was in Finland recently speaking with the border guards. They are exceptionally serious people as they are elsewhere, but exceptionally serious people in Finland. They told me how in 2019 and 2020, prior to Covid, there was a near-fluid border with Russia. They were working day to day in - not quite friendly, but not far off - collaborative co-operation with Russian border guards.

People traversed the border for tourism, business, family connections and a whole range of different things but it was essentially a fluid border. It could not be more different now. Closing the border in Finland, which it had to do because of the weaponised migration by Russia against Finland and other European Union states, has had an enormous impact on its economy, people and business. The effects are felt by towns for tourism, people who had businesses with assets on both sides of the border and families. Of course, there is the exceptional cost to Finland of now having to build a very large fence along a 1,300 km border. They are not doing it because they choose to. They are doing it because they have to and because they understand, in a way we just do not and will not because of our geography, what it feels like to be beside that neighbour. They have understood that for decades and, indeed, much longer than that.

Similarly, the Deputy is right; this perspective from Finland through Estonia - as the Deputy said, Ms Kaja Kallas has been appointed to a very senior position in Europe - through Lithuania and Latvia is very deeply held right across those states. It is a measure of the seriousness of the risk that is faced in Europe at the moment and the reaction that may or may not be necessary. There is no question but that there is a deliberate desire to reflect the security concerns felt from Finland through to Poland and down to Romania in the composition of the Commission and taking the steps the Commission and those countries believe are necessary to place Europe in a better stead in terms of its own resilience. That is as important in energy resilience as any other form of resilience. It is clear that Europe is going to have to treat Russia differently over the next decades because it is clear that we cannot have the relationship that was there before. That is as true on energy as any other piece.

I have not had a discussion with the new defence Commissioner, but I have had a discussion with his new chef de cabinet, Mr. Simonas Šatnas, who was my counterpart. The European Affairs Minister is now going to be the chef de cabinet in the defence Commission with former President Kubilius. I have met Simonas on many occasions. In fact, he sits beside me at the General Affairs Council, or he did until yesterday because he will be taking his new position. Of course, he was my counterpart when I visited Lithuania. It was very interesting and important to get a perspective from him about the changes that Lithuania has had to make over the last two years and the installations it has put in over two years to shelter its population. Over the past two years, Lithuania has put in 4,400 shelters, including 309 with disability access, to protect its population. Its goal is to protect 50% of its population, but it is now at a stage where it can protect 40% of its population. The country has been divided up into different regions to try to test and secure food security and energy security. This is what I saw at the crisis management centre. It is so striking how different it feels in Lithuania when we see what it has managed to do in two years to protect people from any form of incursion into Lithuania.

I believe that between 5,000 and 6,000 German troops are now going to be permanently stationed on the border with Lithuania. They have built a massive fence with Belarus to stop the weaponised migration that has happened there. Vilnius is 30 km or 40 km from the border with Belarus. They take this exceptionally seriously, again, not out of choice. This is not something they were casually doing five, six and ten years ago. This is as a direct response to the threat they feel and that has manifested through a series of different hybrid attacks ranging in seriousness from desecration of statues, which might seem like nothing at all, to the pattern of near constant attacks on infrastructure and websites, arson attacks and the attack, for example, on Estonia with the GPS signal being jammed where civilian aircraft fly through. This is the range of attacks. Every primary school in Estonia got a bomb threat on the same morning. Again, the reaction is so internalised at this point that some of the head teachers just said it is just more Russian nonsense while others closed the schools. This is designed to constantly disrupt those societies, however. I believe they are reacting in proportion to the risk they face. That is why I tried to go to see that.

Deputy Howlin is right to say that new Commission is coloured by that experience. Ms Kallas and former president Kubilius have been put in very senior positions and, of course, Poland has the budget portfolio again, which I believe reflects concerns relating to the security of Europe. For Ireland's position within that, we have to do two things. We have to respect and understand what our European brothers and sisters are feeling and facing and understand that the shift in thinking in Europe has moved slightly east. We need to understand that and find our own space within that both in terms of solidarity and our own articulation of foreign policy and what is important to us with a foreign policy that is humanitarian led. However, we need to really think about the humanitarian abuses that are happening in Ukraine and the loss of life. So often in the Dáil, we quite correctly talk about the Middle East in very detailed ways. We do not talk as often about what is happening in terms of human rights abuses in Ukraine and the stealing and theft of children. This has been highlighted to me by the Irish Commissioner for Human Rights for the Council of Europe, Mr. Michael O'Flaherty. He estimates the theft of children to be somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000. I think they settled at 20,000 at the peace conference in Switzerland. There are ongoing attacks on the people of Ukraine and humanitarian abuses are happening there. The Deputy is right; it reflects a different colour, but I think that is in a reasonable and proportionate response to the risks that have been felt.

On the funding, the Deputy asked me specifically about the joint defence bonds. It is important to say there are mixed views about how we are going to fund all the things we have identified for what we want to do in Europe, whether that is with green energy, security, how we fund a new focus on competitiveness or how we fund different interoperability of our infrastructure. These financial questions are extremely important. I would suggest that we must also think about financing in terms of enlargement. Security is not just a hard question; it is about developing societies. The Cohesion Funds and Common Agricultural Policy are as much tools of stability and security as any other tool. As we expand, we must support communities in the western Balkans to reach our standard and in the same way - what the Deputy highlighted with the Single Market is really important - those countries coming into Europe must have the opportunity as we did to participate on a level playing field in the Single Market. It is so important that existing member states do not pull the ladder up behind them and say it is great that we had the opportunity to participate in the Single Market, but now we are going to change it and it will be different for these accession countries, which are reaching a higher standard in terms of a more detailed acquis regarding the rule of law and perhaps then a potentially different playing field in terms of the Single Market. Nevertheless, it is also true that unless there are certain areas of investment to try to do some of the things we want to do in terms of innovation, we might need to consider that. I can assure the Deputy that from Ireland's perspective, we will be supporting the Single Market that we have enjoyed but that we also think is fair for other people to enjoy. There is, however, a complex set of questions as we prepare our responses to Mr. Draghi's report.

On the rule of law in Hungary, I thank Deputy Howlin for his support for me going. I just was not sure, but on balance, I decided that it was important to go and attend as much to meet and show solidarity with the civil society groups that were there and represent their views and represent the fact that we had taken time to see them. Ms Hadja Lahbib, who is now going to be Commissioner for Preparedness and Crisis Management, and Mr. Xavier Bettel, deputy Prime Minister of Luxembourg, and I met the different groups over breakfast specifically to hear their concerns. Then, all three of us went into the General Affairs Council as three of the 14 Ministers who were there and raised those concerns directly to Hungary in Hungary. That was not with a desire to embarrass Hungary in any way, you understand, but as Xavier Bettel said, to be loud and proud there on behalf of those groups. I hope we managed to get the balance right in that regard. Some of those LGBTI groups from Hungary are coming to Ireland and I am hosting them on 3 October. I would be delighted if members want to come and meet them. It would be a wonderful opportunity for the committee to hear directly what they are saying. I will follow up on that. That was the decision we made, however.

On the rule of law more generally, it is a challenge because yesterday we were dealing with horizontal rule of law reports and with the accession countries while the Presidency is being held by a country in which there are such difficulties with the rule of law and democratic backsliding. I have been a constant and very vocal critic of Hungary throughout my engagements, and I will continue to do that.

I will stop and let others come in.

I thank the Minister of State very much for a very comprehensive response. We have covered an awful lot of ground both in questions and answers.

I will now hand over to Deputy Haughey to see if he has some other areas he would like to discuss.

First, I thank the Minister of State for her presence here today. It really is a busy time in Europe with the new Commission and the new Parliament. One gets the sense that there is a lot of development and change happening. We really appreciate the Minister of State's briefing here today.

I join her in congratulating Michael McGrath on becoming Commissioner for Democracy, Justice and the Rule of Law. As we have heard from the presentations this morning, he has a difficult portfolio in respect of the enforcement of EU treaties. We wish him well. I suspect the ratification by the European Parliament of the Commission will no doubt have a few twists and turns yet but as that is not in our hands, we will see how that goes.

In the context of the political priorities of the Commission President and the EU in general, I am not sure when it was but arising from our visit to Brussels a while ago, it seems that security and defence definitely have gone up the agenda of priorities following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the possibility of another Trump presidency. Competitiveness and investment have also gone up the agenda. The Minister of State mentioned the publication of the Draghi report. It seems the issue of climate change is moving down the agenda. Perhaps that is just the political realities of the situation but I note the role of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group from Italy and the need to placate them. It is going to be an interesting dynamic in the months and years ahead.

My first question refers to the Draghi report, which talks about how the EU has fallen behind the US and is facing increasing threats from China. It talks about the need for a massive investment programme and the need for common fundraising, which Deputy Howlin touched on as well. The Minister of State mentioned that Departments also have a body of work here in Ireland to deal with that report. Are we ruling anything out in relation to common fundraising at this stage? We have had the experience of NextGenerationEU, the borrowing for the Covid-19 pandemic and so forth. I am sure there are some red flags for Ireland in that regard. Regarding our national interest, and perhaps the Minister of State will be reluctant to say, are we ruling anything out in relation to possible common fundraising at this stage?

Returning to the increasing emphasis on Europe's security and defence, the need for strategic autonomy and strategic compass and all of that, I acknowledge the Minister of State has dealt with that in response to some questions from Deputy Howlin. In her experience as Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs, do the Minister of State get a sense that Ireland's traditional policy on military neutrality is being questioned in Europe? Mr. Tony Connelly was previously before the committee and when we talked about this, he said he did not get the sense that our military neutrality is being questioned or that there is some tut-tutting going on about it. I would be interested in the Minister of State's perspective on this. Is there a willingness to facilitate our tradition in that regard? That is my second question. Again, it is probably not that important but it is important enough, having regard for all that is going on at present. We have dealt with the situation in Lebanon and Gaza.

There have been a number of articles recently in the media about Ireland's influence in Brussels and our traditional network of officials across the EU institutions, particularly in the European Commission, and talk of retirements in the natural scheme of things. Is this something we should be worried about? What do we propose to do to encourage Irish people to join and work for the European institutions? It seems to be an issue that has been flagged as something we need to deal with.

I do not know if I should mention this and give it more oxygen and publicity but the article by Eoin Drea in The Irish Times on 18 September, had a very negative view of Ireland and how we are perceived in the European Union. Generally speaking, the tone was that Ireland's stock has fallen substantially in Brussels. Has the Minister of State seen that article and what is her response to it? I thought that we in Ireland were really good Europeans and were really committed to the European Union, its agenda and enlargement, as the Minister of State mentioned, and so forth. The article was a terribly negative view of our position. What is the Minister of State's view on that?

I also congratulate the Minister of State on meeting the civic society groups in Hungary. It is a bumpy ride with the Hungarian Presidency. I am aware some other countries are boycotting Council meetings and so forth. The sooner it is over the better. Anyway, well done to the Minister of State for going and engaging with civic society groups.

I might start at the back end, if I may. Yes, I did see that article. I do not think it reflects the work and ongoing engagement Ireland has had and continues to have. It is premised on an assumption, which I believe to be incorrect, that the portfolio that Michael McGrath has received does not have significance or importance. I could not disagree more.

At the heart of the European Union and its very essence is the rule of law and democratic structures. While that was not tested, questioned or contested perhaps ten years ago, it has not been more contested than since the Second World War. The rule of law is the basis for the protection of minority rights, rights of women, homosexual people and minority religious groups because it protects fundamental freedoms, as well as independent courts, predictable parliaments, predictable open transparent media, the ability to criticise government and to have active civic society, which in Ireland is funded by the Government and where there is engagement all the time. This could not be in more contrast to, for example, Hungary, Slovakia and other concerns around different parts of Europe, which the Deputy has mentioned.

Michael McGrath takes this portfolio at a time when the Presidency itself is under ongoing assessment and to the withholding of funds in relation to democratic back-sliding in the rule of law. We have seen a transition from Poland back to rule-of-law principles, but there is a body of work to do that. Slovakia and our accession countries are going into difficulties. Being honest, it is one of the most important, difficult and significant portfolios for the next five years. I say that with regret because of course I wish that the situation of underlying rule of law was not as contested as it is but unfortunately it is.

That matters for business as well because of the ability to have predictable courts, to be able to contract with certainty and to be able to have courts where you can test those contracts. It is important in situations where you are operating in an environment that does not have that. It does not happen here now at all but there are other countries that are being taken over by organised crime and by oligarchs. The provision of contracts has gone completely away from the values of the rule of law and predictable court processes. I personally believe it is an exceptionally important portfolio but never more than now. I wish him every success with his work. He has a body of work to do and an engagement with difficult countries. He should receive every support from us as he goes through the process of being ratified or confirmed by the European Parliament. I believe it is really important and perhaps that perspective is because of my spending so much time on the rule of law piece, but I cannot state it more strongly. I wish him every success with it.

As for our influence in Brussels and the work that we do, Ireland has approximately 550 people working in the Commission out of 30,000 people. We would like it to be closer to 600 and the Deputy is right to identify that while we have had people working at every level of the Commission, including two Secretaries General to the Commission, many of those are reaching retirement stage. There has not been the same follow-through with younger people taking opportunities in Brussels. That is a strategic problem for us. We want people to work in Europe and be part of Europe. It is not where we want it to be or where it could be. We have had an EU jobs programme for the past while but we have given it an extra impetus, I hope, since September. I did a media campaign around it nationally and on local media. I will be going to the different graduate and jobs fairs, all with a view of telling younger Irish people and indeed, mid-career professionals, of the opportunities in Europe.

To be clear, they are not just jobs for linguists or lawyers but for vets, people who work in aviation, people who work with chemicals and so on. The head of the European Chemicals Agency in Helsinki is an Irish person. There are Irish people working throughout that organisation. She has traineeships whereby people take a position there for a short period, generally three to six months, and once they are in the system, they have the opportunity to work elsewhere. Ireland is a full-employment economy, let us not forget, and has been for a few years now and Irish people are not necessarily considering moving into European positions in the first instance so it is our job to do better and to tell them about the opportunities that exist. There is a competition coming up either at the end of 2024 or the beginning of 2025. There has not been such a competition since 2019 so there is a particular focus on trying to get as many Irish people as possible to participate. We know that for the 900 jobs that might be available there will be 300,000 applicants from across Europe because these are such good jobs. They are extremely well paid jobs that are at the heart of policy making in a global bloc. Exceptional careers can be developed in Brussels and more broadly throughout Europe and we would like to see Irish people getting those jobs. We have a team in the Department of Foreign Affairs who will provide preparation support for the exams and the interviews but again, we have to tell the sons and daughters and the brothers and sisters of Ireland that these jobs exist and that there are great opportunities. Often in Ireland when people are considering leaving to get experience elsewhere they think of the Anglo-Saxon world first and fly across Europe to get to some of those places but there are phenomenal opportunities available in Europe and we will actively support Irish people to do well in this process. Anything members can do to help me to tell this story would be greatly appreciated. Just by way of illustration, the starting salary for a graduate is €5,100 per month, net, in one of these positions, which is not bad.

I thought that too and wondered if I was qualified. They really are great jobs and a great basis for developing a really interesting, well-paid career with great opportunities. The Deputy is right to identify it. We are trying to change it but I am going to need a lot of help to tell this story more broadly.

On the question of neutrality and whether we are under pressure on that, I have never felt that pressure. I have never felt pressure based on Ireland's non-military alignment. To be clear, as I have said so many times, we are not politically neutral. We are simply not politically neutral. We take a very firm view against Russia and for Ukraine. We are not politically neutral but we are not militarily aligned. That is really important to Ireland and there is a lot of respect for that and an acknowledgement of it. Of course, we are not on our own in that regard. Austria, Malta and Switzerland are in the same situation. However, while that is so and we are not under pressure in relation to it, we need to do more to try to understand how our neighbours feel. They turned up for us during Brexit. There were European politicians walking the fields along the Border-----

Indeed, they turned up for us physically and they saw how important it was for us not to have a border on this island. They did not have to do that but they did it and it improved understanding and helped to shape a European position that was entirely in Ireland's interests. It is our turn to turn up for them and while that does not mean changing our military position, it does mean turning up and respecting and understanding the pressure they feel they are under, even if we do not feel it ourselves, in the same way that Lithuania definitely did not feel it in regard to the issues we faced. If we are serious about solidarity, about our relationships in Europe and maintaining the benefit of those relationships, in an outward-looking way and in terms of wanting to do the right thing, then it is important that we turn up for our friends and make an extra effort to understand the pressure they are feeling. There is a recognition, and I certainly refer to it with pride, of the number of Ukrainian people who have come to Ireland. They represent 2% of our population but we must not get ahead of ourselves either. There are other countries who have taken in close to 2% of their population and there are others who have taken in millions in transit. We must not be too self-congratulatory but it is important to say that the scale of supports that we have provided to people over the whole period, up to now, is significant. So too are the efforts we have made in terms of European Peace Facility, EPF. Ireland has committed approximately €380 million in stabilisation, humanitarian and non-lethal military support to Ukraine through the EPF and other facilities. We have also engaged in other, more targeted projects. For example, while I was in Lithuania it was announced that Ireland is giving €3 million to a Lithuanian school-building project. There are more specific examples of co-operation and partnership that we can do. Lithuania has the skills, capacity and experience to do this but why would Ireland not want to fund school-, Montessori- and crèche-building in Ukraine? Lithuania is building those facilities in Ukraine and we are providing the funding to enable it to do that better and more quickly. Why would we not want to do that? We must make the effort to genuinely understand and not dismiss the very significant security concerns. It is important to note that we are talking about Ukraine more, in our general discourse, than about the Middle East because this is what our European partners are feeling very directly. As was said to me in Lithuania, Estonia and Finland, these are existential questions for those countries. That is the level of threat that they feel and that goes beyond the level of threat that we felt during the Brexit process. They have an aggressive neighbour whereas our situation was different. It is really important, if we are going to maintain our position in Europe, to lean into this in the best way that we can. That was certainly my motivation in travelling to those different countries.

On the Draghi report and the issue of funding, we have not ruled anything out. We are net contributors to Europe now and we must guard taxpayers' money very carefully but we have also had the experience of being net recipients. We know exactly how important it is to develop an economy, and more importantly a society, through the Cohesion Funds, the Common Agricultural Policy and so on. As we look at the funding challenges of Europe for the future we will bring our perspective to bear in terms of a certain frugality with regard to taxpayers' money but also an understanding that there can be a better equality of experience, a better market opportunity experience for our companies and a better level of fairness overall that will benefit everybody in Europe if we invest in the correct things over time. Whether one believes that should be done through the Cohesion Funds or energy infrastructure, both of those things give us a better resilience for the future in terms of energy prices, social cohesion, the development of economies and, therefore, of market opportunities. We have not ruled anything out and we will bring to the discussions that broader perspective that comes from our transition from being net recipients to net contributors. That understanding helps our position in Europe. That empathy and ability to understand both positions helps us to have better and more authentic conversations with our partners.

I thank the Minister of State and welcome her to her first meeting with this committee. She has certainly hit the ground running in her brief and it sounds like she has not taken her foot off the pedal for even a moment, with all of the meetings and engagements, which is great. It is good for Ireland that we are having these engagements on the ground and are meeting people. I also join her in congratulating Deputy Michael McGrath. She has articulated very well the importance of his brief. Obviously, as a former public expenditure Minister, having worked across all Departments, he brings unique experience to that role and is more than capable of taking it on. There is a huge body of work to be done there and the Minister of State put that very well in her comments.

A lot of topics have been discussed in detail already and I am not going to rehash what has been said but I was interested to hear that the Minister of State had been to Tallinn for a cybersecurity briefing. I would like to hear a little more detail on that because our country has matured and evolved quite rapidly in the last four years in the defence and security conversations that we are having. For the first time, there is a greater understanding in Ireland of the type of neutrality we have and there is a demand from our citizens to do more to protect the State, including State assets and infrastructure, and its citizens. The tipping point was the cyberattack on the HSE. People really understand the impact that had and it made it very real for people. Cybersecurity is the one area, when we talk about greater defence co-operation at a European level, about which there is no disagreement. I am interested to hear what is happening in that space and what kind of work Ireland is doing with our EU partners.

I note with interest the Minister of State's comments on the attitude at EU level to Ireland's military neutrality and our position in that regard.

I take on board what the Minister of State has said about having to lean in, step up, and be there for other countries. Sometimes Ireland has a very privileged position because of our geography. We think that things do not really affect us and we are fine here on our little island in the Atlantic and that nobody notices us but they very much do notice us. We are the weak link among member states. I believe we have a lot of work to do in terms of increasing defence funding in our State, to have greater capabilities for our own Defence Forces, and in being more self-sufficient and playing our role and playing our part. This does not mean we are sending troops on the ground to the front line somewhere but we are way behind where we need to be in doing our fair share with other European partners. There seems to be an expectation here that if we are in trouble people would run to help us but yet we are not willing to reciprocate in some form. We have a job of work to do there.

With regard to the security and defence space, what is happening and what does the Minister of State believe are the expectations of other member states when it comes to defence funding, participation and greater co-operation? What are they expecting from us given that they understand the position we are in nationally?

The Senator has identified something that is really important for Ireland and I thank her for doing so. The cyber attack on the HSE did get a lot of attention and people understood. It was not long after this that people were receiving phone calls to their mobiles looking for payment for an e-flow tag, for example. It was fraud, basically, and it was the acquisition of personal data by an attack on the HSE that stored people's personal data. One could see a sort of cause and effect. I always felt that people did not actually feel the impact quite as much as they might have done because it was happening at the same time as Covid. While there was this extraordinary disruption to the health service, if people had their appointments cancelled or there was disruption it was not exactly clear if that was a consequence of Covid or whether it was the attack on the HSE. I felt it got slightly masked. I am not saying that this is a good thing but had it happened at a time other than during Covid perhaps people would have seen the cause and effect more directly. That is important but it highlights that we have already been under attack and it was not the only time. There have been other attacks some of which got into the media and some of which have just been dealt with by our National Cyber Security Centre. It would be a really good idea to get a briefing with them at the earliest opportunity. I really admire the work that they do. We need to support them and continue to invest in them. They are moving to new premises. They have a programme and a body of work but there is no question that we should be fully behind the work they are trying to do to protect the State and to protect assets, companies and individuals within the State. This was very clear to me when I met the cyber security team in Tallinn. Their exact title is the NATO Cooperative Defence Centre of Excellence. It is a combination of EU and NATO expertise working together to try to-----

Exactly. When I was there, Ireland's secondee on CCDCOE, Commandant Frank Hickey, gave a presentation to me, along with his superior, on the work they are doing more broadly across Europe but also on Ireland's increased participation in that. It is a NATO-accredited centre that enhances capability and co-operation between 38 countries in cyber defence. It brings together legal, operational, strategy and technical expertise. They made the point to me very clearly that Ireland is an island, which is grand, but nowhere is an island when it comes to cyber security. There is no point in considering that just because we are off in the North Atlantic floating along that we are in any way immune to the type of attacks that other people have felt. We have to have the expertise to be able to defend against that. I was very proud to hear that Ireland participated in a Locked Shields event. I do not want to call it a game because it is not a game. It is an operational exercise where there is an attack and a series of defence teams are there to try to protect the systems. It happens at an exceptionally high level and the fact that Ireland is participating in this means Ireland had the depth of understanding with the participation and the training to be able to compete and participate in that exercise. That was a very important measure.

We should not be afraid of co-operation with EU partners and NATO partners. We derive for our Defence Forces and our teams additional levels of understanding, capability and expertise that are of benefit to Ireland. Of course we have gone from observer status to participant status at a number of PESCO missions, including de-mining and undersea cables. We have an individually tailored partnership with NATO on marine infrastructure and undersea cables, which is very important to Ireland. I will highlight, however, that the energy infrastructure is nearly more important to Ireland and is something we need to talk about. This sort of participation is of benefit to our Defence Forces because they are having the opportunity to get access to information. It is also true to say that within that group of countries, wherever it happens to be, there is another meeting inside that Ireland is not included in. This is obviously because we are not part of NATO. That is fine and that is our position but we must be aware there is a conversation in the room and there is another conversation which we are part of. We just need to be aware of that. It is really important that we participated in the Locked Shields cyber defence exercise. It is run annually and I hope we will continue to participate in that because I believe we need to.

On the expectations around how we contribute for the future, that is not set and it is an open question at this point. In a way, the work of the defence commission is a big opportunity to develop resilience in a way that does not need to be thought about just in terms of active security but can be thought about defensively and in terms of resilience. We have not had a good enough conversation about how we protect floating wind energy assets off the west coast of Ireland, for example, when they become viable commercially at scale, and what the jurisdictional issues are and how that feeds into the planning. We talked about this at the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly in committee B with Deputy Howlin so many years ago. As far as I am concerned that sort of question is as big a part of the defence and security question as any question in relation to weapons or exercises or anything of that kind. We have to find our own place within that conversation, one that is of benefit to Ireland and makes a reasonable contribution to the shared challenges of Europe. We do have a civilian military opportunity with our tech sector and the opportunity to participate there. We must remember that while we are militarily neutral - and the Senator has identified it - we do have a serious gap in our personnel, our investment, and in what we can reasonably do to protect ourselves. Being militarily neutral does not mean not spending anything. It means spending more. It means being able to defend ourselves. We have not had that perspective and it is important anyway that we do that. It has been shown to us since the last general election, for example, and how much more important that is now in the face of ongoing geopolitical unrest and what that means for the Continent of Europe. I do not fully know the answer to the question yet but rather than simply dismiss the idea of a defence commission or believe it is not relevant to us we must find our best space within it and see what we can do constructively.

All right. We will chase that one up. I apologise that I missed a considerable amount of the early part of the meeting because I was in the Dáil Chamber. As I was leaving I believe Deputy Howlin was dealing with the escalating situation in the Middle East, which obviously had to take up a huge part of the conversation. If there is any repetition, that is okay. The Minister of State does not necessarily have to answer those parts.

We all have positions on what we could do domestically. It is no big shock. On the occupied territories Bill, we could ensure there are no weapons going to Israel overflying in Ireland. We could make sure we have tight use on dual-use commodities, and beyond that we could ensure there is the divestment from any company involved in the illegal settlements. We are talking of hybrid threats. In the past while we have seen the Israelis operate like something that came straight out of a James Bond film.

Whatever international law and rules of operations we may have believed existed are all out the window. Our fear is not what has happened but what could happen. Where is the European Union in this regard? I know the Government said there needs to be movement on the EU-Israel association agreement but we have not seen any. Some of our EU partners deal with the Israelis directly in supplying weapons. Obviously, all of this is unacceptable. Has there been any movement in relation to the fact that this situation is getting a lot worse?

As regards Hungary and the rule of law, I have no doubt this will be difficult to deal with in the near future. A significant part of that will fall to Michael McGrath. The Minister of State spoke about the issues regarding the western Balkans and Georgia. How do we thread that piece where one wants to give a route away from a Russian sphere to the better part of the European Union as regards democracy? How does one welcome people in and provide states with the necessary supports but at the same time ensure there is no deviation from the rule of law? It is not a simple journey.

The Minister of State also spoke about Sudan. It is one of the largest ongoing conflicts. It will have a huge impact on the states around it and on migration. Where lies that conversation? I accept the Minister of State's point on the Baltic states and others regarding their history with Russia over a long period and that the threats are very real. I also welcome that she does not feel there is any pressure concerning our independent foreign policy approach and that we are militarily non-aligned and neutral. I accept there are many rooms which we will not enter and have conversations, which is our choice.

When talking about cyber threats, it concerns energy and cyber infrastructure. Necessary work needs to be done on that but we must also accept that social media has become a huge issue. It involves state and non-state actors and the issue with big tech companies. While there is the Digital Services Act and attempts by Coimisiún na Meán, none of it is where it needs to be in holding those companies to account. We know democracy is almost at stake. There are weaponised systems for state and non-state actors - some organised, some demented. It is a huge issue.

On migration, we have to get our own house in order in processing and removing it from the private sector, where we are enriching a small amount of people. Some are better operators than others. Some of these places are not suitable for people and have a huge impact, sometimes even on those surrounding them. That is a particular issue that needs to be dealt with. We have seen changes across Europe such as in Germany and others - the Minister of State spoke about Hungary. Where is that general conversation at? As much as everyone needs to have their own house in order, there is the wider issue that a huge amount of people are on the move for various reasons across the Middle East and Africa. This obviously relates to us here with hundreds of years of colonisation, as well as unfair trade practices and ongoing conflict. A lot of the major powers still make money from supplying weapons across the board. I accept none of this is straightforward to deal with. I could ask another 14 questions but I will leave it at that.

To be clear, we are not under pressure concerning our independent foreign policy approach. I would not like anyone to get that impression - we are not. That is important and consistent with what Deputy Haughey heard separately. I raised Sudan yesterday and was the only member state representative to do so, to try to make it part of the discussion for the European Council meeting. We will see if it is on the European Council agenda; we hope it will be. The dynamic and conversation around migration in Europe are continually changing. The Deputy spoke about the threats to democracy - these points are linked - and the weaponisation of discourse by state and non-state actors. Of course, there is a lot we can do in state structures to help with that issue but we must recognise that these are malicious actors. We must not contribute to the inflammation of language being used deliberately in our democracies to try to destabilise them. As public representatives, that responsibility falls more to us than anybody else to ensure we do not replicate the language popping up on Facebook anywhere in Europe. There have been a number of examples of concern over the past number of months and years. We must be careful to make sure that does not happen and we take our own responsibility.

The Deputy is right to say we have seen a fragmentation in Europe in relation to migration. It was a huge issue from a humanitarian perspective five, six and seven years ago. Yet, the conversation has only become politically weaponised in the past two or three years - why do we think that is - in the same way that other questions became weaponised four or five years ago. The Deputy was right to identify that there are malicious state and non-state actors involved in that. We, as politicians, must be careful in how we respond. The Deputy is right that the discourse has changed. We hope it is clear that the borders of Europe are the external borders - while we are not in Schengen, it is the external borders of Schengen. There are no political pressures to change what has been an exceptionally successful Single Market and free movement area for a long time with all of the related benefits for people. It is a challenge for me when I hear a migration conversation on one hand and that we must close our borders; of course, we must have a rules-based process but we cannot operate without migration. Nearly in the next breath, there is a conversation about the challenges of demography and an ageing population and that we do not have enough people to be innovative and competitive. I cannot understand the intellectual gap that does not join these issues in some way and recognise that there are talented people, including people coming into my constituency in wealthy parts of Dublin such as Blackrock and Dún Laoghaire. They have come in and been welcomed into those communities for a long time. They have bachelor's degrees and are only dying to work. It is about making the connection between enabling people who can work in societies in which we want people to work and pay tax and that it is happening. Politically, we must recognise those instances and not contribute to further inflamed dialogue. The Deputy is right to identify that issue. It is one we can help to settle down ourselves.

I will go back to the rule of law conversation because of its importance. It is difficult to straddle these different processes and recognise that countries in the western Balkans are at different stages of development. For example, Moldova has made extraordinary changes and reforms but does so against the backdrop of difficult political pressures and interference in their democracy. An important referendum and presidential election are coming up shortly which will, I hope, set a path for Moldova to continue to move towards Europe. Meanwhile Georgia, which is so close, is taking the opposite steps but it is the Government doing that. The people of Georgia are still in favour of European Union membership. This is evidence of weaponised political mechanisms trying to divide countries that would, or would not, come to Europe. We must recognise case by case the efforts western Balkan states are making to come to the values and rules of Europe and try to support them in every way we can. For example, I met my Serbian counterpart when I was in Bled. It is an important country in that region. It has many political challenges in different ways. We offered our help with the issue of embedding judicial independence and structures. Ireland has offered help not just to Serbia but to a range of countries where we can provide expert support and additional capacity in different ways to help them on that journey.

I was really struck by the efforts Serbia was making in terms of providing energy support to Ukraine. On all these different pieces, when you spend more and more time with different countries, you understand better the difficult positions they have. We will open three new embassies in that region next year to have a better footprint there and to better understand and better support those countries as they move towards Europe.

On the Middle East, to update Deputy Ó Murchú, as I said earlier, the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste are two of the most vocal politicians globally in this regard. They are operating throughout the UN high-level week. They have been engaging with their counterparts, King Abdullah of Jordan, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa. The Tánaiste is meeting with a wide range of counterparts, including his counterparts from Palestine, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon and his EU 27 counterparts through the Foreign Affairs Council. The Government has a clear track record of bringing attention to the situation in the Middle East and advocating at EU level for action. It has been consistently raised at European Council meetings and Foreign Affairs Council meetings and in the ways in which I can get in at the General Affairs Council meetings, where the timing is very tight. Most recently, the Tánaiste raised his concerns at an informal meeting of EU foreign affairs ministers during the high-level week. The Taoiseach will raise his concerns at the European Council, as I did at the General Affairs Council yesterday. What we are trying to achieve and have been for a very long time is a few different things - an immediate ceasefire, the return of the hostages and unfettered humanitarian access. Ireland has been at the front in providing support, not just core support, to UNRWA when it has asked. We are one of its first ports of call. It is so important to say that. I remember at the very earliest stages of this conflict being on a call with Samantha Power about how we would get humanitarian aid into Gaza. Ireland was in - I do not want to say the proud position - the appropriate position of being the frontrunner in its contribution in both proportionate and absolute terms to UNRWA at that time, massively increasing our support to UNRWA by I think 125%, but I will check that. We are therefore at the front in our support for civilians in that region. There is no question about that internationally.

Deputy Ó Murchú is right to identify that there was a concern and reports of flights over Ireland of civil aircraft. There is an investigation by the Department of Transport. It has identified that nine flights occurred in sovereign space, but what is not yet clear is what was on those flights. There is still a body of work to do to investigate that, but I will happily come back to the Deputy once we have more information on it.

On the settlements, it is very important to recognise that Ireland was one of the first to move in removing ISIF funding from organisations there. I think Deputy Ó Murchú and I have discussed that in the House before. That is a concrete step that Ireland could and did take. It is very important to reflect, following the ICJ judgment, on what legal platform that gives us, if any, to do anything else. We have always taken the view, correctly, that Ireland calls on everybody else to comply with international law. That is our position. That is our foreign policy - compliance with international law and broad humanitarian access to the world. Compliance with international law is essential. As the Deputy knows, we have differed on the occupied territories Bill and the level of competence that trade is, whether it is a domestic issue or a European issue. The firm, consistent advice from Attorneys General has been that it is a European trade issue. For that reason, going back to February, the Taoiseach and the Spanish Prime Minister raised the trade association agreement and what can be taken further in that regard. It is very important to say that our partners do not necessarily agree with that. While we continue to raise it, the Deputy is right to ask, "What have you actually achieved out of that?" Our partners do not necessarily agree with that, yet we continue to raise it. It is important to say that the Taoiseach, reflecting on the ICJ judgment, which is a very important judgment, has asked for a new look, as the Deputy knows, at the advice as to what Ireland can do, beyond removal of ISIF funding in that region, that reflects international law. As soon as we deviate from our stance on support for multilateral institutions and international law, we can never act outside that. We must always act in a way that is most current with that evolving situation. It is important to say that the Taoiseach has asked for a reflection on whether that new piece of information, the ICJ judgment, is important in our consideration as to how we approach this in the next phase.

You have covered a huge amount of ground, Minister. I have just a couple of small points or questions.

I will, if you do not mind, go back to where you finished. The Taoiseach made a very important reference in, I think, a CNN interview he did in New York a couple of days ago to the human rights element within the trade situation with Israel. It is imperative on us, with our European partners. It will undermine so many of the other conversations we talked about this morning in terms of talking to members of the European Union that want to come in and our existing colleagues and member states of the European Union about their observance of the rule of law if we, as a bloc, decide to disregard parts of a trade agreement that contains human rights clauses and, as the Taoiseach quite clearly said, treat them as if they are not there in reality but some type of window dressing that can be ignored. It is very important that Ireland continue that work with our EU partners in that area.

This committee has done a huge amount of work, including recently in Serbia, which we visited, but also in other parts of the Balkans etc., on the European Union's recognition that part of the issues we are talking about today - Georgia is a classic example - is almost exclusively the bad actors creating a situation. There is no get-off-the-hook. The European Union, however, created the vacuum. If prospective member states are waiting 20-plus years to get into something they want to get into, we are watching generations of young people grow up in their countries believing in Europe and having that somehow denied to them. It creates a fertile ground then for malevolent actors, particularly state actors in the region, to intervene to reset the agenda. It is so important that our position on enlargement and how we talk about it as a country is doubled down on.

One thing to which the Minister of State alluded but which I think is far more important is the decision by Germany on Schengen border controls. I appreciate that it is, first, technically legal to do on a short-term basis because of a security consideration and, second, effectively a domestic response, but it is extremely worrying that the largest European Union country in terms of economy and population is moving to a consideration of the reimposition of border controls. That impacts the concept of the free movement of people, the Single Market and, as clearly shown, the ability to move goods from A to B. It is a worrying thing and should be on the agenda of the political leaders of Europe to look at. We have seen this already a little with Italy and France, but if it becomes the acceptable norm as a response, we could very quickly be moving ourselves to a situation which I believe would strike at the heart of where Europe has been at its most successful.

My other point is something I feel quite strongly about as regards funding, which the Minister of State talked about at a very early stage, and the funding mechanism for Europe, whether it is on the common defence side or in other areas. The European Union is not a sovereign state and therefore does not have the structures of a sovereign state. I would emphasise great caution as regards the ability of an institution to create debt, which always has a knock-on effect on sovereign states, and particularly as regards how changes may come about within the governing parties of European states, which could agree to the actual structures to incur the debt and find out at a point in future that those countries no longer agree to the structures of how the debt would be repaid and the impact that would have on smaller member states that are users of the euro. I hope that Ireland is in that space on that.

Those are my small points. You have covered an awful lot already, Minister, so you may comment on whatever area you wish.

This is exactly the point that net contributors are concerned about. That measure of frugality is absolutely at the top of our mind.

We straddle the balance about needing to invest more in Europe. The Cathaoirleach is right to highlight it. That is the perspective we bring and I thank him for that. However, I do not know where it will land given the challenges of Europe as well. I again thank him for the reflection which is an important one considering his position.

There was a question on internal borders and migration. At some point we were talking about weaponised migration and we were talking about how different issues have been, I think, deliberately weaponised in physical form on the borders of Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland to disrupt those democracies and to disrupt European Society deliberately by an actor that does not want to see Europe succeed. That is also done as effectively through what we see on social media and then through the repetition of that by public actors, political actors or by becoming an issue of greater scale that it had been. It is very important to recognise there is a measure of intent with this. There is a measure of not wanting Europe to succeed and not wanting democracy to succeed. There is a different geopolitical balance at play and being played out in Ukraine and across Europe. The tools of that are both physical and through social media.

It is enormously regrettable that in less than ten years, a major European power such as Germany which took such an empathetic approach with Syrian refugees, for example, in 2015 or thereabouts has gone to now having these internal political pressures to react in this way albeit, as the Cathaoirleach says, temporarily. These should be points of concern. It is a reflection of how the politics has changed but I believe there is a very strong measure of weaponisation in that political shift.

Migration has always existed for different reasons - as a consequence of climate change, war and internal displacement - but the dynamic has changed across Europe. In my view, it is ever more important to recognise that this is something that has happened in the last three or four years, but the Single Market and the free movement of people have persisted for decades with benefits for hundreds of millions of people for decades. We must not allow nefarious malign actors to disrupt what we have carefully constructed together, which was at its core a peace project and a democratic project. It is very important that the Cathaoirleach has raised that and I hope I do not go too far in what I say.

He is also right in what he said about the western Balkans. It is astonishing to me that the countries that joined in 2004 did so having been part of the Soviet structure or its ilk as recently as 1989, 1990 or 1991. Just 13, 14 or 15 years later they became full members of the European Union. It took an incredible amount of work to get to that point and to join in such a short period. Meanwhile, for the western Balkans, there was a period of drift and not a focus an enlargement whereas the European project has always been about enlarging in different ways, in small ways and then in that big bang way in 2004 followed by this big gap. A vacuum will always be filled.

As it happens, I was in Montenegro on a personal holiday over the summer. I was asking people - maybe I should not have been - if they thought they would ever be part of the European Union and asked them for their perspective on it. There was considerable interest but also some fatigue and a sense merely that it might happen someday. That is not the enthusiasm we want to foster about Europe generally. We want different populations to be excited about coming to Europe and to believe that Europe is really engaged with them and really listening to them.

Our focus is on enlargement. We are a very strong supporter of enlargement. We are opening embassies to provide better support to that. Our tone is also one of encouragement and not one of criticism. They need to meet the rules and I accept those rules have become more complicated since 2004. It is up to us to provide better support both from the perspective of the European Commission and of individual countries. One thing that might be important - I discussed this with my Slovenian colleague at the Bled strategic forum - is looking at the way in which we open the chapters for negotiation. Of course, there are important political decisions and technical standards to be met in the closing of chapters and that is important.

When I spoke with my Albanian colleague yesterday, she said they had 1,500 people working on the measures to date and if only everything could be open together, they could generate a real synergy among the public service, a real synergy in the work that was being done, a real enthusiasm and a real sense of momentum. To me it seems fair never to pull up the ladder behind you but rather open things up say, "Fine, let's open the chapters and let's see how you get on and we'll provide support to you on that." This more piecemeal way does not foster that sort of enthusiasm, that encouragement or that sense of momentum.

At a time when I believe it is important that countries are moving more quickly towards the European Union, I believe we should be looking at different ways of opening those chapters. I hope the Commission might hear that conversation and reflect upon it in terms of the equality of opportunity that we would like to see for our western Balkan friends.