This has been an interesting debate. I do not mean to insult Deputy Lenihan in saying I shall not reply to the points he raised because they were just political points. He felt he had to make them. He made a ten minute speech on the basis of a three weeks delay in a ten year period, which is not really serious, and was unworthy of him. He would have been far better off to have followed the line taken by Deputies Daly and MacSharry, and indeed to a certain extent by Deputy Taylor.
Deputy MacSharry started off by saying, and Deputy Daly reiterated, that this was a sad Bill. There is a little truth in that, but they greatly exaggerated the position. It is pity that Greenland as a result of a referendum held there took a decision to leave the Community. But they are not, in the sense that we understood it, European. They are totally different culturally. As a race they are a long distance away from the centre of the Community. They are totally dependent on one commodity. They are totally different from other European countries. However, I take the point made by Deputy MacSharry and Deputy Daly that it is sad that any body of people should decide to leave the Community. But to continue then, as did Deputy MacSharry — and Deputy Taylor also took up the point — to question our membership of the Community on the basis of Greenland leaving is perhaps something we needed to debate in this House. I do not know how representative Deputy MacSharry is of the thinking in his party. To give him his due, Deputy Taylor adopted the same line his party adopted almost 13 years ago now.
If Deputy MacSharry is representative of a body of opinion in the Fianna Fáil Party we need a debate about our continuing membership of the European Community. I have no doubt about where my party stand. I know that 100 per cent of the membership of the Houses of the Oireachtas elected on the Fine Gael ticket are for continued membership. Nobody disputes the fact that there were problems. We knew when we joined that there would be problems. In the year just ended, the net transfer into this country was £650 million as a result of our membership. That was the benefit in money terms.
Against that Deputy Taylor would write off the job losses in industry and, with some justification, Deputy MacSharry would point out that we did not have 100 per cent fulfilment of what we thought was possible under the Common Agricultural Policy and the Regional Fund. We did extremely well under the Social Fund. The disappointment has been in our industries. We were behind protective barriers. Before we joined we were in the process of lowering those barriers. We had signed a trade agreement with our nearest neighbour, at that time our biggest market. We were lowering those barriers and the advantage in the home market was being diluted. Since only two countries were involved we would have had the option of raising them again.
We have lost jobs in industry for other reasons apart from our membership of the EC. In many instances we have new industries which are orientated towards exporting to the Common Market. We have attracted capital from Japan and America. We now have industries with a potential to export all over the world. If we look at our exports over the past five years, that fact is amply underlined and borne out. The quality of the industries which replaced the industries that died is far superior. They are far more capable of holding their place in the very difficult, harsh and competitive markets to which we have to sell if we want to stay in business.
That brings me to a point of which Deputy Taylor is losing sight. We cannot hope to support our population at its present level and with the number of young people coming out of school — far more than in any other country in Europe — unless we have competitive industries exporting goods to Europe. We have a huge advantage in the European Community. We have highly trained, well educated young people. They are not available in Germany or in many other countries. These markets would not be available to us in future if we were not a member of the Community. We must attract capital from countries outside the Community to establish further industries here.
Deputy MacSharry spoke about agriculture and our experience in the past few years. The original Common Agricultural Policy was intended to ensure self-sufficiency in food in the Community. We joined on the presumption that we could contribute towards achieving that self-sufficiency and that we would derive benefit from our competitively advantageous position in the dairy sector. We have done that. Despite some disappointments in the past few years about the introduction of the super-levy and price increases which were considered inadequate, every farmer is significantly better off now in real terms than he was 15 years ago.
Deputy Daly referred to the problem about our fisheries. If there was not protection for Irish markets inside the Community, what condition would our fishing industry be in now? We could not afford to buy the necessary vessels to protect our waters. More than any other country in Europe we have far the greatest proportion of water to land. How could we protect those water outside the Community? With a Common Fisheries Policy we can control the fishing in those waters. We would have no chance of doing that if we were outside the Community.
Deputy MacSharry and Deputy Taylor questioned our membership of the Common Market. Deputy Daly had some thoughts about it as well. Perhaps it is time we had a debate in this House on whether we want to continue to be a member of the EC. I remember the referendum very clearly. When we campaigned in 1972 we were not talking merely about advantages in money terms. We were talking about political advantage. We were talking about jumping out of the shadow of a very powerful economic and political neighbour and about taking our place in the heart of Europe. I believe we have done that.
I would regret it very much if there was a movement away from that position. We have not got all we wanted. There is more to come. We suffered a trauma because of the recession and the oil crisis after the 1973 upsurge in OPEC prices. That had an effect on countries and the citizens of those countries. In the past 12 months the dangers of the effects of that on the European ideal have been recognised. Over the six months of our presidency I noticed that there is now more concern about the development of the European Community as originally intended.
We have come through a very shaky patch, particularly in the past five years. We are trying to get back to the path of growth, which is very important if we are to get work for the 13 million people in the Community who are now without work. That is a frightening figure. It is four times the population of this country. We must address ourselves to that problem and we must move towards the goal of European union for which my party and other parties worked 13 years ago.
A number of points were raised on the Bill before the House. Deputy Mitchell raised the OCT status of Greenland. Community OCT status applies to countries which for cultural, economic or historic reasons have links with a Community member state. Countries with this status have preferential tarifffree access to Community markets for their exports and normally receive aid from the European Development Fund and European Investment Bank "soft" loans. As a developed country, relatively, Greenland will not receive aid from the EDF and EIB, though it will have access to EC markets for its fishery products provided that Community fishing vessels will continue to have access to Greenland's waters under the terms of fisheries agreements. Deputy Daly wanted to know about North Atlantic salmon——