Brexit allows us to re-assess our own rapport with EU

One of my vivid memories of the 1980s is an IDA advert trying to entice foreign multinational companies into Ireland.

It showed a bunch of clean-cut young people beaming with self-confidence. For all the world they looked like a Young Fine Gael branch on some university campus in Dublin.

“We are the Young Europeans,” declared the slogan.

We weren’t too fond of that group, those of us in fourth year in the Jes. They stood for everything we were rebelling against at the time. The irony is that they also stood for everything we stand for now!

But there was a point to it, because it perfectly captured the love affair that Ireland has had with Europe in all its guises since we joined the EEC in 1973.

Officially, that love affair has continued. We have always portrayed ourselves as good Europeans.

That has been translated as goody-goody Europeans. The EU is seldom criticised. When Fine Gael, in particular, comments on Europe the pom-poms invariably come out.

Brussels, officially, is portrayed as a force of good. Perhaps it is because Ireland has been a net beneficiary: in other words, the moolah has come in our direction.

Perhaps it has been because our agriculture sector has benefitted – without EU payments it is scary to think of how many Irish farms would not survive.

Sure, from time to time, there are resentments. The EU Habitats Directives are always controversial. In general, they serve to protect the environment from short-sighted local decision motivated by profit.

The Blue Flag designation of beaches is a good example. If your local beach fails to win a blue flag, it become a motivating factor for the local authority to do something about it.

But the decisions to protect raised bogs or to divert a motorway because of a rare snail give rise to frustration over diktats coming from Brussels.

We have never had a mass anti-EU party – and it is hard to explain why.

Sinn Féin was possibly in that camp for a long time but was only a peripheral part of its campaign then. Now it is less sceptical although more critical.

A handful of Irish MEPs – Luke Flanagan, Nessa Childers and the Sinn Féin members – have tried to expose some of the shortcomings of the EU.

But unlike other issues, there is rarely critical engagement about Europe from mainstream political parties nor - for that matter - from the media.

For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.