 His CV or rather his short biography here begins with the wonderful words that he is the son of the late John Hallam, a man with whom I soldered into difficult trenches of the Labour Party in its mid-60s and 70s. I can tell you one of the toughest and most loyal human beings that you ever came across and his son is a worthy successor to the father. It's a great opening. John Hallam was a trade union official in Wexford Town where he took, well, well, from which he ruled the town in many ways, on a newly counted, in a place called Corish Hall, Crick, which was named after the father of Brendan Corish, who himself had been a member of the first doll up to the moment when he died. So I have very fond memories of the hall and of your father. And the canteen next door. And of you. The canteen next door served a lot of stuff that you wouldn't find in ordinary canteens if you can poke them. So it's a really great personal pleasure for me to welcome you here yet again. Thank you. But this time in your capacity as the leader of the Labour Party. I have to say that you have had a career with which most of us are familiar. But just to make the point that Brendan has been minister of the environment and health. And of course, in the last government, he occupied a completely new position of minister of public expenditure and public service reform. And it was an exciting, I think, anyway, an astonishing innovation by that government and by the T-shirt. It might not have worked, splitting the functions of the Department of Finance in two. And it's a great tribute to you and the other half of you that it worked so well. And probably the task was so great that confronting the country when you took off us that that role had to be divided. I'm sure that it would have been beyond the capacity of one human being to have done, physically and mentally. So I think just to say it by the way it started, I want to thank you publicly here for what you did during the course of that government. I think you've very greatly contributed to taking this out of a very deep hole in which we had dove ourselves and putting ourselves back in a position I know that you're going to refer to that later. So without any more ado, because you are the leader of the Labour Party, you had this huge experience career and we look forward to a great anticipation. I have some nostalgia obviously for the old Corish Memorial Hall on Wexford's main street. Tell you a little economic fact about it. The Labour Party used to own that building and in one of our periodic times of impoverishment, we sold it to the Irish Transport and General Workers Union for £200 in the 1940s. The height of the boom they sold it for £2 million. But we did always put in a right of residence, so they built a new Corish Memorial Hall. We brought the plaque from the wall and we're still in a more modern building now. It's the transport union that got the money, but we keep the tradition. But thank you for the invitation to speak. I think we're all getting weary of speeches that begin by emphasising the gravity of the challenges that we face, yet Brexit and the upheaval facing the European Union bring about another series of conversations which sound all too familiar to us all. A decade ago we began talking about potentially ruinous levels of banking debt, the resolution of which mentioned by Brendan still haunts our national psyche. And back then we were just starting the work of putting right the catastrophic management of our public finances. Ten years later I know it doesn't always feel like it, but Ireland has emerged reasonably well. I said during one of my budget speeches that in time we would as a people realise that our recovery from our economic woes was as significant an achievement as our falling into them was failure. And I still believe that although quite clearly that argument might need some time to mature yet. Our economy is growing again, our debt while high is at a level that we can clearly grow out of and we are growing out of. People are back in work and wages are beginning to rise, but not enough. It would be a brave individual who would suggest nowadays that we need the recovery to keep going, but from an Irish perspective I think it is fair to say that we now need to turn our attention to political rather than economic crises. It wasn't always certain that we get to this point. I've spoken about Greece before and in truth I've been critical of Tsaritsa and the forces of populism in that country. But today we are less than three weeks from yet another deadline for Greece to reach an agreement with our creditors. Like Ireland Greece was plunged into crisis in 2008 and I think it's fair to say that if Ireland was still today imposing tax increases and further spending reductions on our people the very fabric of our society would be under great threat. As it is there is rising support in Greece for that country to exit the European Union and indeed to reinstate the drachma. That challenge facing Europe is one I want to come back to because I think it's one of the key factors that brought Brexit about. But my primary topic is of course to discuss the implications of Brexit for this island. Over the past few days we've seen a flurry of activity from government. On Monday some of the detailed government papers on Brexit were leaked to the Irish Times in an attempt in my view to rebut the weekend suggestions that the government was not doing enough. Enda Kenny met with Theresa May in an encounter a Miriam Lorde referred to as a Vaseline summit free of friction and largely free of meaning. Also on Monday Pascal Donohue my successor in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and someone for whom I have great admiration addressed a similar audience to this one and again on the same theme. I touch upon the comments he made towards the end of these remarks. You might argue that all of this is good. The government is finally showing that it is taking on its task in addressing these important issues. But there are a few problems with blindingly accepting that particular narrative. The fact is that government action has only resulted from opposition criticism. As far back as November last I asked the Taoiseach to at least provide weekly briefings to the parties in opposition on Ireland's preparedness issue by issue for Brexit and was assured then that such briefings would be provided because such preparation was underway. Three full months later opposition parties still read more in the national newspapers about government preparations than we receive from the office of the Taoiseach. The second problem with the government's narrative is I believe more fundamental. I accept that the Irish government is developing a more complete position. Of course they are. And I welcome the fact that we've had a little more clarity on Britain's position even if it is a position with which I fundamentally disagree. But I don't accept that the government is doing enough to influence a shared European position because there will be two sides of the discussion the UK and the 27. We continually hear that negotiations with the United Kingdom can't begin until article 50 is triggered. But the idea that the 27 member states will only begin discussing our shared position would be on the day that the article is triggered is ludicrous. Indeed the fact that the 27 member states met in an informal gathering in December proved that it is nonsense. We all know that Barney and his team are doing that work. We have a short window before article 50 is triggered to frame what Ireland requires from a UK exit and to gain support from the other 26 for our requirements. For example we've heard over recent months what the EU requires in terms of pension obligations. But outside of the EU bubble we need a much better exposition of how all the interests will be impacted upon and how our vital interests will be protected. Now is not the time for fireside chats. Now is the time for bold statements and a clear strategy to avoid collateral damage for this country. At an informal gathering the leaders of the 27 agreed that they would oversee the negotiations and that between meetings of the European Council a working party with a permanent chair would be established to act on their behalf and liaise with and oversee the work of the Barney team. I asked the Thysiak and Nadal about this. Specifically I wanted to know what efforts we were making to have senior representation on this oversight body or indeed why wouldn't we not secure the permanent chairmanship of what will effectively be a Brexit oversight committee. When asking I was conscious of the expertise of Irish people people should forgive me mentioning her name such as Catherine Day who would clearly fulfill such a role with honour and be balanced both with a detailed knowledge of this country's needs and a deep and wide understanding of all the member states of the union. As is now becoming customary the Thysiak didn't answer this point leading it to Minister of State Dara Murphy to do so and in his response he downplayed the importance of the group as merely a gathering of civil servants and give absolutely no indication that we were seeking to have influence there. So we have a negotiator appointed by the European Commission his work is to be overseen by an EU council but between these meetings the responsibility will lie with a group that Dara Murphy believes are only lowly functionaries with little or no influence. It's a little wonder then that we're not confident in our state of preparedness and little wonder that 74% of the people in the most recent opinion poll agree that we should have a dedicated Brexit minister to have someone who is clearly in charge of all the detail. The previous government's response to the financial crisis mentioned by Brendan Halligan was to establish an economic management council we thought long and hard about it in advance of going into government how this existential threat to our economic well-being should be met to coordinate across all government departments our response to that unique crisis. It was subject to much criticism much of which was nonsense but it clearly worked. In contrast when the Thysiak met with his British counterpart last Monday I didn't see anybody from either of the two economic ministries in the room and while I accept Brexit constitutes a huge shifted relations on this island since the Good Friday Agreement it is also an economic threat and I'd like to think our economic departments are as seized of the issues as the Department of Foreign Affairs is of the impact on the peace process. In truth though the bigger questions Brexit is asking of us are not questions to which we have worked out answers yet. I'll pick just one example, an example which actually is back in the news again for other reasons. We've had a single all island electricity market since 2007. The market works well perhaps because it's not subject I have to say to day-to-day political control and is run by professional managers. This all island market is currently being redesigned in order to comply with EU rules for a pan-European electricity market. There's to be an EU-wide trading and settlement code and we must adapt to fit into that. Our own Irish market is also defective. Our grid that described it to me is shaped like a wasp with a narrow waist joining two larger parts. The existing inter-connector doesn't have capacity to ship power from where it is generated to where it is needed and for a long time now we've recognised the need for a second inter-connector to break that log jam. I want to stress two things. First the north-south inter-connector is as I understand it wrongly named. It's not needed in order to connect the two networks north and south. It is needed in order to transform two networks into one. And secondly the inter-connector is needed as a matter of some urgency. Northern Ireland signed up to an all island single market. It closed its aging power stations. It increasing relies on power generated here to be sent there securely and reliably because that's what we promised. If we don't build an inter-connector easily soon then phased power cuts are in prospect of the north. We will have imposed significant and social damage on our neighbour. If we can't get up to the plate and deliver on this project then we need to let people know because they urgently need to find alternatives. Against that backdrop we now have Brexit and every aspect of the issue becomes further complicated. What was once a plan to create a real all island market as part of a real single European market now becomes a plan to export electricity across the border of the European Union. Power will be shipped out of the EU, out of the single market and most likely whatever Treasurer May has said out of the customs union. All sorts of questions arise. Most centrally will it be possible to run an all island single electricity market when part of their market remains in the larger European single market and part of it outside the European Union. I choose this issue just as one example of a series of major issues that are confronting us across many parts of our administration in practically every government department. Instead of grappling with the complexities of these issues and seeking to chart national responses to them our government believes that doing a nationwide road show and repeating the same set of slogans will suffice. The need to reassure us that the big picture is fine and that's okay but in truth it is the detail that will bog us down for years to come. The interconnector is also an example of why I believe post-Brexit the notion of adhering to policies designed in Brussels for a single European market need to be examined again. Our aviation, shipping and transport policies, our energy and energy network policies, even our broadcasting and telecommunication policies no longer make complete sense when there are 60 million non-EU citizens between us and the rest of Europe. If the picture didn't look alarming enough already the evidence of the former head of the European Commission's customs procedures to members of parliament in Britain yesterday was further reason for us to sit up and take note when he bluntly stated that if Northern Ireland is not part of the EU customs territory then there is a customs border. The union needs to recognize this new reality and there will be a large piece of non-EU between us and the rest of the union and there will need to be changes in policy to accommodate that reality in my view. But right now the rest of Europe doesn't seem to be in a very accommodating mood for all the discussions I've had not only with socialist colleagues but with colleagues from other traditions. Soon after the Brexit referendum I remarked that there was a peakheadedness in evidence already on both sides of the debate. I said that some senior members of the Commission the council and the parliament seem to have displayed all the capacity of the Bourbons to learn nothing from history. The union I said should not be a sheep pen into which people are corralled for fear of the consequences of leaving. The last thing we need is a bully boy determination not just to quickly eject the British but to make that expulsion as draconian as possible. One of the dispiriting aspects of debate about Europe is the same here as in Britain is that it is conducted on a rigidly bipolar basis. One is either pro-European or anti. Either a europhile or a europhobe. Even skepticism is regarded as anti-European as a betrayal of the great European project. I regard myself and I've always been a pro-European both instinctively and rationally. But I don't surrender my rational capacity to critique Europe and its institutions and with longer and a gin and tonic or a pint I go through some of the experiences of the last five years in detail. I don't regard myself as anti-European when I point out to issues like mission creep and empire building within the European institutions. And it is not anti-European to criticize policies designed on a one size fits all basis that don't even nod in the direction of unique local conditions. I cite rules requiring us to separate our railways from our trains and our power stations from our power grid as example of a theological approach with a doctrine of competition that shows no appreciation of life as is truly lived on a small island offshore another island offshore the coast of Europe. And I also cite, I suppose this has had made more impact on me, the percentage caps that found their way into the fiscal treaty and bind us all to having no real basis in selecting the numbers other than that they happen to be used by Germany for a couple of decades and has been found out here clearly suited, unsuited to our conditions or indeed the conditions in some other European countries. Another dispiriting aspect of the debate about Europe is that there might have been some expectation by now that there would be some questioning among Euro files about why a British majority made the decision they did but there's been no such examination. Instead a drawbridge mentality largely prevails and seems in some quarters to be actually strengthening. The drawbridge mentality was summarized by Giver Hofstadt writing in the Los Angeles Times. He said if if we're soft now on Britain giving it too much wriggle room to extract favours and deals we'll only feed anti-European parties elsewhere in Europe and strengthen the belief of nationalists and populists that the European Union is a walkover. Giver Hofstadt probably not the most typical of you representatives of the European Union but one who has a unique role now as the actual representative of the European Parliament and the negotiations hasn't softened his position recently. Indeed I listened to him on Newsnight on Monday evening when his view is that the only solution was deeper integration of Europe. In my view Mr. Giver Hofstadt is utterly deaf to the views of the people and his approach is a recipe to the implosion of what we all regard as a hugely important European project. In truth I agree with the Polish foreign minister. Not someone from my own political family or that I would normally agree with when he said that the referendum result showed disillusionment with European integration and a declining trust in the European Union itself. It's past time therefore that we should examine our own consciences as strong supporters of the European project and see what we can do to address that erosion of support. We've seen some recent good news from Europe. Business sentiment is improving. Our economies are growing again but it's taken too long and poor economic performance has created real political problems. Brexit is not an isolated incident. We've seen the resignation of a reforming Italian Prime Minister, the threat of the far right hopefully to be dissipated in France and in the Netherlands and our own instability or our own inability to elect a majority government here last year. I said I'd go back to comment on Greece. My observation would be this. How can we easily suggest that the recession is over or that creditor countries understand their obligations to debtor countries when the Greek crisis continues to rumble on a crisis that's been in being now for a decade and to make matters worse we've now seen the election of a president in the United States who is deeply hostile to the European Union and indeed friendly to those in Europe who are hostile to the concept of the Union itself. The days when the United States under the rational presidency of Barack Obama would act as a stabilizing influence are gone and the tragedy for the United Kingdom is that at precisely the time its European allies are abandoned in an effort to placate difficulties within the Tory party it also finds its old allies in Washington in a completely different position. It is unfortunately seen both pillars of its foreign policy implode at the same time and precisely at that time that Europe needs the positive and experienced contribution in international affairs that the United Kingdom might have provided we have lost that. We in Ireland are looking I think these days to have our own president who often acts as a conscience for our nation. Earlier this week he noted that in Europe and in the United States deepening inequalities have betrayed the commitment to cohesion upon which so many hopes have been placed and as he often does I think he has pointed to the core of the challenge that we now face. Winning the citizens of Europe back to the European project requires first a genuine recommitment to the framework of a Europe based on equality, personal freedom and prosperity. Second it means EU institutions and leaders that address the problems that are pressing heaviest now on the citizens of Europe in particular stagnant growth and youth unemployment a rekindling of hope in essence. I believe we need to reinvigorate the notion of a social Europe a Europe that does not recognize the dangers of economic underachievement throughout this continent cannot win the support of our people. We need to debate this and we need to act on it. Prolonged EU austerity can only do further damage to the political fabric that underpins the development of the Union. As Jean Monnet once argued Europe has never existed one must genuinely create it. When visionary leaders such as Monnet spoke about a Europe they spoke about an idea an idea of tremendous power. Social Europe created to allow nations to take risks on other nations knowing that the power of the idea of membership of the Union was such that it could be used to bed down democracy as it was when there was a reach out to Greece or to Spain or to Portugal in the past. Without a revitalization of social Europe we surely face a disintegration. Europe needs to rediscover its spirit and its purpose to serve its people not to dictate to its people. The Union will survive and prosper if it shows that it can meet the needs of European people right now and that means jobs, growth and hope. There are some moves being led by social democrats across Europe on this agenda. During 2016 the Commission began consulting on the pillar of social rights. Just last week the European Parliament endorsed a report on the social pillar produced by the Socialist Democrats Group which argues for decent working conditions against inequality and strong social protections including dealing with the emerging gig economy. That report was drafted by Maria Jauradriguez who is also doing another important piece of work which I proposed myself at a meeting of leaders of socialist parties just before Christmas. That work was focused on re-examining the rules of the stability and growth pact to make changes that would allow proper investment in the infrastructures we need to meet the needs of our growing economies. I mentioned at the outset that I'd come back to the comments made here on Monday by Pascal Dummio. Anyone who reads his address would have to recognize that it was well read and a very thoughtful contribution but at its core he emphasized it is so important for centrist politics to assert itself again and tell its story. Leaving Pascal's unstated implication that we should all support a centrist government I feel the argument is ill-conceived. I come from an entirely different political tradition. There are profound political differences between us. I can tell you that they manifested themselves very regularly in the five years we were in government together. Our rows were on policies and they were sometimes difficult but we held together by the sheer gravity of the economic situation we faced. But our difficulties were caused by the fact that our instincts are not the same. We do have a common willingness to walk the levers of government in the pursuit of the interest of our people but to elevate centrism to a level of ideology I think is a mistake. I believe we need a continuing clash of ideas. We cannot make blandness a brand. We have to articulate our differences clearly but with respect for those who hold different ones. And from my part I believe we need a politics that is ambitious for our people which strives to eliminate injustice wherever we see it. I've referred to my ideas of how Europe must change and the values which I believe should underpin that change. And I make these points not as tangents of the debate on Brexit but to argue for how we should approach the vast array of issues that Brexit will now present. At one level the issue of concern to Ireland are a level above politics. Our priorities are to protect the common travel area and the Good Friday Agreement. We need to make sure that the transition both for the common travel area and the Good Friday Agreement institutions is as smooth and as free from turbulence as our shared commitments and good will can make it. We need also to ensure that the terms of trade pro post Brexit don't leave this country disadvantaged as a consequence of leaving Britain disadvantaged. And I think our European colleagues understand the former but not necessarily the latter. And while we are a member state of good standing, a member state that has made too many sacrifices in the European Union's interest over the last decade, we need to ensure that not just Irish or British priorities but European priorities understand and encompass those too. These priorities need to be highlighted in the European Council's negotiating guidelines and we need to push for them relentlessly. At one level we need to debate around what type of Ireland and what type of Europe will be left after Brexit. If solidarity as a notion is not a part of the discussion and British withdrawal becomes expulsion then by way of collateral damage we will be flung from the centre of Europe to its frontiers. If equality as a notion is not at the heart of our thinking then what will be the implications for the very many Northern Ireland residents who are EU citizens? If community as a notion is not debated then what sort of union will we have built at all? We have vital national interests at stake and we must not allow anyone to forget that but we also have common cause with people who believe in the values of the founding principles of Europe. If European values mean anything then they must mean that throughout the talks ahead the voice of Ireland must be heard loudly by all our colleagues. The Schumann Declaration made on the 9th of May 1950, barely five years after the catastrophic Second World War ended, begins with world peace cannot be safeguarded without the making of creative efforts proportionate to the dangers which threaten it. Robert Schumann envisaged a new Europe where war would be impossible and the vast engines of production of Europe would be used to eliminate poverty and want instead of producing the weapons of war. Creative efforts to pick up the pieces of that dream today must also be proportionate to the dangers which now threaten it. Thank you.