 First of all, just to say that it's great to be in Dublin and the last time I was here was for a commemoration of the Dublin lock-out and the workers in their great struggle against William Murphy, an employer who perhaps we should remember makes Jim Ratcliffe or Binyos in range map look like a big softy, but one of those moments in history for the trade unionists amongst us, that remind you perhaps they can come lose a battle but go on to ultimately win the war. And then of course as now they were fighting for the right to organise, the right to a fair wage, the right to basic standards of decency at work in society. And fast forward a century, and I think we're at a very similar crossroads right across Europe from Dublin to Athens, Madrid to Paris, working people are increasingly questioning the legitimacy of a European political elite that seems out of touch with their reality, semi detached from the lives of ordinary Europeans and in some cases in hoc or entranced by the interests of global finance. A year ago Euro barometer which measures public attitudes across the continent found that for the first time ever more European citizens considered the EU to be undemocratic than democratic. A deeply worrying development. And I would argue not just a product of Europe's institutional flaws, but also of the real lived experience of EU sponsored austerity privatisation and liberalisation programs. From the UK government's sell off of the Royal Mail, which I have to say colloquially in the UK we describe as selling tenets for a ffiver, to the price hikes and blatant profiteering of the big six energy companies, the public in Britain blames Brussels and Westminster in equal measure. Many of us trust that neither the European nor their domestic political class is either willing or able to stand up for public interest against big global business, all to provide protection against the harsher wings of globalisation. And in Britain our complex relationship with Europe is entering a new and dangerous phase. Earlier this year as we were discussing earlier David Cameron promised an in out referendum on our membership of the EU if he's re-elected in 2015 on the basis of a renegotiated treaty. And it's quite clear to us that the aim is to repatriate workers rights, pregnancy agency working time and frankly not with a view to improving them. And it's a start that's driven more by the need to manage his discontented right wing back benches and the alarm at the threat posed by the UK Independence Party than any national case. But it's a political game that's only been made possible by that rising tide of anti-EU sentiment in the UK and an appeal to certain other governments in the EU that more UK octats are the price of keeping Britain in. Whichever way you look at it, the reality we face is this. The European project as we know it, a dynamic single market counterbalanced by good public services and generous workplace rights is fraying around the edges. Now back in 1975, when the campaign on Britain's membership of the EU was at its height, my dad was a shop steward in a car factory and like most trade union activists then certainly from his union, the T&D, he was against what he called the common market. And I remember having a sticker on his moped that read something like, vote no to the rich man's club. Now I was a teenager at the time and like all good trade unionist daughters, I decided I was going to make up my own mind so I sent off all the materials on the yes no campaigns. I'm not claiming to be a typical teenager by the way, but I did find out more about the arguments for and against and somehow in the process I also came across a photograph of some women workers I think from Belgium and they were on strike and they were holding up a placard that says give us article 119. And I was like, what's article 119? But I found out of course that that was about the absolute principle and right in the treaty for women and men to receive equal pay. They were on strike for equal pay and they saw Europe as being the ultimate arbitrator that that was their right by law. Now of course that I found very exciting as a teenager, the very idea that workers across borders could feel themselves entitled to certain rights and protections and ensure that employers couldn't compete against each other by undercutting pay. It inspired me and of course it was that vision that was precisely the same vision that Jacques de Law famously used to win over delegates at the Congress of the British TEC back in 1988. The idea that workers needn't be mere pawns in the rich man's club, but instead could benefit from a social market designed to balance the power of capital with rights. And protections for labour. But the bargain that has held our continent together since the 1950s is now in grave danger of unwinding. And I guess one real political question is how has this been allowed to happen? And the answer I think lies partly in what some might describe as a crisis in social democratic thinking and political organisation. Over three decades as globalisation grew and neoliberalism came to dominate, many social democratic parties began to lose confidence in their own ability to shape markets to suit society's needs. Of course the values of redistribution of wealth held true, but it increasingly became a case of redistribution to the poor from the slightly better of. And in Britain, for example, millions of low paid workers depend on billions of pounds worth of tax credits funded by the taxpayer. There was still an interest too in the redistribution of power. And in the late 90s, Will Hutton's thesis of stakeholder capitalism drew some warm words from Tony Blair. But I guess things particularly shifted when under the pressure of the cost of reunification, Germany had been the very model of co-determination and that sense of stakeholder capitalism. Became dubbed the sick man of Europe and increasingly the German model at that time looked less and less attractive and many people in the British Labour Party started turning their eyes towards Bill Clinton's American economics, the guidance. And for a while it all seemed to work. After all, if you can't be some, join them. Weak regulation of the finance sector, shareholder supremacy and weaker unions were all fine as long as jobs and easy access to credit were clenched agree. I remember talking to somebody who worked in the policy unit at number 10 down the street during the Labour government years. And he told me he'd been looking at the whole issue of what was happening in terms of growing inequality and in terms of the collapse of living standards that of course kicked in long before the crash occurred. And of course that many economists now agree was a key driver of the crash. But he said he couldn't get anybody's attention. This was not something that the government was focused on and the rest, as they say, was history. But the big question today is how we move forward, whether we can begin to sketch out the contours of the post crash settlement for Europe that is greener, stronger and fairer. A new model that's attuned to the central challenges that face us, like climate change, energy scarcity, rising inequality, social and demographic change and of course an industrial landscape that's being reshaped at huge speed. And I think most of us understand that of course we can't just rewind the tape and that the starting point is pretty daunting. We do have ageing societies, we do have challenges of mass migration. I think we're facing a very serious challenge in the rise of right-wing political extremism and that's all served to underline that collective feeling of profound insecurity. The narrative that we're increasingly hearing about Europe is one of soup kitchens. Young couples moving back in with their parents, the poor going without medicine, horrific murders of migrant workers by fascist thugs. Two weeks ago the Red Cross published a major report underlying the scale of poverty and inequality, social exclusion and mass unemployment afflicting many EU countries. The headline statistics speak for themselves, a 75% increase in the number of Europeans using food banks since 2009. The suicide rate amongst Greek women more than W and even in Germany 5 million people losing what they regard as their middle class status. Equally disturbing as the facts about Europe's jobs crisis across the continent, the jobless rate is 12%. Nearly 6 million under 25 year olds without a job. In Spain as many of us are aware of over half of all young people unemployed, a ticking time bomb. As the Red Cross report suggested, the really worrying thing is that it could get an awful lot worse. To quote from the Red Cross, the long term consequences of this crisis have yet to serve this. The problems could be felt for decades. The economic crisis is creating the conditions for widespread social crisis. They talk about growing gap in the distribution of resources, the rich becoming richer and the poor becoming poorer and how competition for shrinking resources could bring about growing xenophobia, discrimination and social exclusion as well as abuse and domestic problems. The situation in my book has been made so much worse by the EU's response to the crash, which frankly could have been taken straight from a 1980s free market textbook. More labour market deregulation, structural reforms that erode workers' terms and conditions and the fundamental right to collectively bargain in the programme of countries, liberalisation of markets, privatisation of services. And for southern Europe, near permanent austerity, the troika in government may say that the medicine is necessary and in fact in many cases in our saying it's worked, the economy is improving. Well of course we understand that stable bond yields and debt sustainability are important, but frankly try telling the unemployed junster in Madrid or the zero hours worker in London or the middle class professional in Athens who is now living on the street that it's okay, the economy is getting better. It's true the worst of the eurozone turbulence may have passed, but any growth is anemic, demand has collapsed and living standards are improved for and not surprisingly ordinary Europeans are pretty fed up. If the EU is about little more than protecting the single currency at all costs, privatising services and keeping it tightly on public spending, then public support for European integration and the European ideal will diminish as surely as night follows day. From the trade union movement's perspective, Europe needs to rediscover the values that served it so well, not just during the long post world boom, but also through the challenges posed by the oil crisis and the economic cancer revolution of the 1980s. Now it's not the time to reject the European social model, but to reinvent it for a new age. For us decent working conditions, decent services and decent welfare aren't part of the problem, they're part of the answer. Of course I recognise that the world has changed. We all know about the rise of China, India, Brazil and other emerging superpowers. We understand the rise in health, pension and social care costs of our ageing population and we know that the EU can't duck reform. But if Europe is to prosper in the decades ahead, we need to play to our own strengths rather than imitate a poor copy of American-style capitalism. I see there as being three central priorities for us. First, political renewal. The advance of US star near liberalism, the spread of non-productive financial capitalism, downward pressure on workers' wages have all taken their toll. Social democracy hasn't exactly been an electrally attractive proposition of late. In Germany, the SPD scored just 26% in the recent election, a consequence perhaps of the structural reforms that took place in the 2000s. In Norway, the right was triumphant two months ago, despite the vast reserves built up in the country's sovereign wealth fund. In Spain and Greece, as in Britain, Conservatives now hold power. Despite the evident failure of neoliberalism, given the financial crash, the left seems to have lost its self-confidence to intervening global markets to defend welfare systems and to stand up to overweening corporate power. But there are glimmers of hope. In Britain, where we're less than 18 months away from what I think is going to be the most important election in a generation, the Labour Party is beginning to change the terms of the political debate. In my book, Ed Miliband has certainly made a number of bold and correct calls. He's put the issue of responsible capitalism on the agenda. He's made the case for pre-distribution, or in plain language, tackling the root causes of inequality. That must include not just a minimum wage or a voluntary living wage, but rebuilding new forms of collective bargaining for fair wages and a fair labour market. Of course, in his recent conference speech, he promised a 20-month freeze on energy bills if he's elected. I can't describe to you the hysteria that followed that commitment. However, it's proved to be not just popular with voters, but a signal that Labour is prepared to intervene in failing markets and challenge the primacy of big corporations. He's sent clear signals that whereas Labour had largely abandoned the motion of a mixed economy and was relaxed about creeping privatisation of public services such as the NHS, public ownership does matter after all. So to our second priority, and that would be to level the playing field for European workers. If you have a single market, then the logical corollary is that you need a single set of Labour rules, and that these should be based not just on the lowest common denominator, as some would have it, but on decent standards. To put it bluntly, I'm very clear not just in the UK, but Europe needs a pay rise, and to me that's plain common sense to stop good employers being undercut by the bad, and to put money back into workers' pockets as one of the most effective ways of boosting demand. Obviously there's a big role for unions here, and that underlines the need for policy change to promote collective bargaining. We're also arguing for worker representation on company remuneration committees and boards and modern rages councils. It's also vital that social protections once again inform policy making at the highest levels, and that's why EU treaties need to include a social protocol to guarantee respect for welfare and labour rights. And then the third and final priority must be to change the collective European mindset on how we get ourselves out of the current mess. With even the IMF warming against further austerity, we need to think about more durable solutions for the long term. And I believe that the EU's priorities must be the priorities of EU citizens investment for the future, sustainable growth, decent jobs, homes and living standards. Now while the German government may stand accused of imposing austerity on other nations, my trade union colleagues in the German DGB through the European TUC have been calling for a people's plan for Europe, a 21st century marshal plan to renew our continent's infrastructure, decarbonise our economies and get people back to work. It's a great idea. It's about breaking the vicious cycle of economic decline, shrinking demand and falling living standards. And we believe that there are crucial, big improvements that could be delivered in a whole range of areas. Energy transformation, sustainable water management, transport schemes such as the European Transport Network, education and training, especially for our young people, expansion of broadband, economic regeneration from support to SMEs to low interest loans to micro-credit programmes. An investment in public services such as health, welfare, eldercare, childcare, social housing on which economic success depends. Of course the big question is how you fund it and some have put a very strong case for euro bonds. We in the trade union movement have long championed the cause of an international financial transactions tax on the trillions of euros traded daily in the equity and derivatives markets. That's a positive progressive agenda, getting our economy back on track, getting young people into jobs, giving people the chance to provide a decent income for their families. In the long run that's the best way to deal with our debts and to fund our unique social model. And it's the best way of rebuilding democratic support for the European ideal. Now I'm an optimist. I believe it is possible to revitalise a social Europe. Historically it's always been critical that we balance those interests of free trade, open markets and companies with those of citizens, workers and unions. It's an ideal that served our continent well through good times and bad and it's a bargain that we need to reconstruct to help us meet the complex challenges of the 21st century. So I'll just finish by saying this. Europe has been tested before, after the destruction of the Second World War, after the Berlin Wall came down and after enlargement to the East almost a decade ago. And each time the continent has succeeded because it has chosen to take the high road, because collectively we refuse to walk away from social solidarity that has brought the diverse peoples of Europe together. Today in the midst of crisis we have to remain true to those same values and give the people of Europe hope and confidence in a better future for all. Thank you.