Vol. 254 No. 4
I move: "That the Dáil do now adjourn."
At this stage I should like to record that I understand that speakers from all sides propose to be brief, because I am anxious that the Ministers immediately responsible for these matters will get the opportunity of speaking in their due turn according to the procedures established. That would only be possible, Sir, if speakers confined themselves to about half an hour, I should imagine.
Will the Taoiseach be furnishing us with a copy of his speech?
I am afraid not. These are notes which I have underlined and crossed out.
There was a good deal of crossing out.
However, I will try and make one available afterwards.
It is all right. I do not want to put anyone to any trouble. I just thought it might be available.
If the Taoiseach showed us what he crossed out it would be better.
If I may proceed. We are wasting valuable time.
There was a good deal of time wasted in the last year.
The indications now are that substantial progress will be made in the negotiations leading to the enlargement of the European Community before the summer recess in August. A comparative lull had existed in the negotiations in recent months. This was due mainly to the absence of agreed Community negotiating positions on a number of the major issues arising in the British negotiations, notably Britain's contribution to the Community Budget during the transitional period and access to the enlarged Community for New Zealand dairy products and sugar from developing Commonwealth countries. This lull ended as a result of the agreement reached between the Communities and Britain at their ministerial meeting on the 11th and 12th of May last on the questions of Commonwealth sugar and transitional measures for agriculture and the advance that was made on the problem of financing.
Perhaps the most decisive development of recent weeks has been the meeting between President Pompidou and Mr. Health. The successful outcome of this meeting and the understandings reached at it have served to open the way to further substantial progress in the negotiations with Britain and consequently in the negotiations on the whole in the very near future. Indeed, both leaders were confident after their meeting that the main British issues outstanding could be settled before the end of June. The Minister for Foreign Affairs in his winding-up speech will be dealing with the prospects of negotiations and I shall not therefore go into this aspect. I think rather it would be appropriate, now that we have reached a decisive stage in the negotiations, that I should review the negotiations to date or rather the progress made in the negotiations to date.
We must first of all trace matters back to the period immediately before the opening of the negotiations. The Summit Meeting of the Six at The Hague in December, 1969 inaugurated a new phase of development and achievement in the Community. The Six met as the EEC transitional period was drawing to a close. Important decisions on the movement to the final stage of the Common Market were still outstanding as were decisions about the internal development and strengthening of the Communities. Moreover, the application for membership of Ireland, Great Britain, Denmark and Norway were in abeyance. The member states saw the completion, strengthening and enlargement of the Communities as three aspects of a single challenge, in the Community's words "three complementary aspects of the second decisive stage in the construction of Europe". They accepted this challenge and reached agreement at The Hague on measures relating to all three aspects. They agreed to ensure the final establishment of the Common Market, notably by drawing up definitive financial arrangements for the Community and for the common agricultural policy.
They agreed to strengthen and develop the Communities by working towards an economic and monetary union, by promoting technological and nuclear research, by considering reforms of the European Social Fund and by exploring avenues towards greater political co-operation. The member states further agreed to the opening of negotiations with the applicant countries. In the period between The Hague Summit meeting and the formal opening of the enlargement negotiations on the 30th June the Minister for Foreign Affairs paid official visits to all member countries of the EEC. The purpose of these visits was threefold. In the first place he wished to reiterate to the Governments concerned the continued commitment of the Government to the policy of Irish membership of the European Communities, our acceptance of the Treaties of Rome and Paris and our desire to join with the member states of the Communities and the other applicant countries in working for the construction of political unification in Europe.
Secondly, in view of suggestions which had been made at the time, that the Community should first concentrate on the negotiations with Britain and leave over applications of the other applicant countries, the Government were concerned to impress on the Governments of the Six the vital importance which the Government attached to having all the applicant countries admitted to the Community at the same time. The Minister therefore urged most strongly that the negotiations with Ireland and the other applicant countries, including Britain, should open and close simultaneously.
Our third concern was to press for the establishment of a satisfactory information and consultation procedure from the very start of the negotiations. It was explained to the Governments concerned that we regarded such a procedure as being essential from our point of view so as to ensure that nothing affecting our interests would be settled in any of the other negotiations, particularly the British negotiations, without our having the opportunity of giving our views and having them taken fully into account.
These important points were also put by the Minister for Foreign Affairs during the pre-negotiating stage to members of the Commission of the Communities and to the Governments of the other applicant countries as well. They were further emphasised in the statement made by the Minister on behalf of the Government at the formal opening of negotiations on the 30th June last year. It was therefore most satisfactory from our point of view when the Communities declared at the outset of the negotiations their acceptance of the view that there should be simultaneous accession to the Communities of all the applicant countries including Ireland.
We were also pleased with the arrangement agreed for the frequency of negotiating meetings which we are satisfied has been providing adequate parallelism between our negotiations and those of the other applicant countries, including Britain.
The agreement reached with the Communities on the question of the information and consultation procedure was also satisfactory. The procedure is that after meetings with each of the applicant countries the Community delegation informs the other countries of what has happened. This enables us to make our views known in our negotiations on any matters of importance to this country which arise in the other negotiations. This has been working well in practice. Furthermore, under the procedure agreed, the conclusions reached in the negotiations with each of the applicant countries are to be provisional. Final conclusions are to be adopted only in multilateral discussions between the Community and all the applicant countries. The Community delegation have since confirmed on a number of occasions that final decisions will be reached only on a multilateral basis as between the Communities and all the applicant countries.
Deputies will be interested to know in this connection that negotiations, in fact, have already taken place on a multilateral basis on the question of tariff quotas. Complementary to the information and consultation procedure which is in operation as between ourselves and the Community side, we have established very useful contact arrangements with the other applicant countries at both ministerial and official level. This ensures that we are able to share information with these countries about our respective negotiations on the issues arising and to exchange views on a regular basis.
In accordance with the decisions taken by the Six at the Hague Summit Meeting the negotiations with the applicant countries were opened on the basis that the applicant countries accepted the Treaties of Rome and Paris, and their political objectives, the decisions which had been made by the Community since the Treaties came into force, and the choices made by the Community in the field of development. The Community further stipulated at the opening of the negotiations that the solution of any problems which might arise must be sought in the establishment of transitional measures and not in the changing of existing Community rules. Our negotiating positions have necessarily had to be formulated on this basis, and it is most important that this is recognised in any discussion of our negotiating positions. The negotiations then are essentially about the transitional arrangements necessary for adjusting the economies of the applicant countries on the one hand and that of the Communities on the other. We accept as a general principle that solutions to any problems arising for Ireland must be found in the transitional arrangements. We have made it clear to the Communities from the very beginning of negotiations that there are questions of major importance for this country for which the solutions necessary might go beyond the scope initially envisaged by the Communities in the negotiations for transitional arrangements.
In February, a report on the progress of the negotiations was circulated. This was a comprehensive document which gave details of the matters raised in the negotiations and the stage reached on these matters and thus enabled Deputies to form an overall view of negotiations. I think that it is quite clear from this factual report that our delegation, led by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, has been pursuing very actively in negotiations these matters of concern to us. I stated earlier that the negotiations as a whole have now entered a decisive stage. In our case the Communities have had under examination matters raised by us and the statements and memoranda which we have submitted in support of our positions in these matters. This examination is to enable the Community to assess the problems involved and to formulate proposals to put to us. This process is now nearing completion on a number of major topics and we expect that the Community side will present their reactions to our cases by next August. It may well be—and I would ask the House to recognise this —that the timing of Community reactions on the topics raised by us will depend on the progress made in the coming weeks towards a global solution on transitional measures in the negotiations as a whole. The main concentration at present in the negotiations as a whole—and this situation is likely to continue until agreement is attained—is on reaching a global solution on transitional measures and particularly on those aspects of the transitional measures which loom very large in the British negotiations.
Agreement was reached with the British three weeks ago on two important elements of this question, namely, transitional arrangements in the agricultural sector and access for Commonwealth sugar. The two remaining elements of major importance to them are access for New Zealand dairy products and Britain's contribution to the Community Budget during the transitional period. The Community has not as yet finalised its position on these two matters. It is now expected that the Member States will agree very shortly on the proposals to be put to the British. Substantive negotiations can then proceed with the British on these problems and the aim on both sides is to attempt to reach bilateral agreement on them during the present month. It is also possible that multilateral agreements on these questions will be achieved this month also, but this will depend not only on the tempo of the British negotiations but also on the extent of any resulting issues which they may pose for the other applicants.
As regards the question of access to the enlarged Communities for sugar from the developing Commonwealth countries, I have already mentioned that agreement has recently been reached between the Community and British delegations on this matter. At the meeting with Ireland last week at the level of the officials, the Community side officially furnished us with the text of this agreement. This is being studied here at present and the Irish delegation will return to the matter at a later negotiating meeting. The Community side has been informed that the proposed arrangements incorporated in the agreement with Britain would not appear to involve any special problems for us.
The question of financing has also been advanced somewhat in the negotiations in recent weeks. I should like to make it clear that what is involved here is the question of the financial contributions to be paid by Britain and the other applicant countries to the Budget of the Communities during the transitional period only. All the applicant countries, including Ireland, have agreed that as from the end of the transitional period they will apply fully the Community system of "own resources". This means that we and the other applicants will then be paying over automatically to the Communities our total receipts from levies on imports of agricultural products and total receipts from the application of the Community's common customs tariff on imported goods, and a proportion of our receipts from our system of added value tax not exceeding 1 per cent. The issue in the negotiations is the formula to be agreed upon for the phasing in by the applicant countries of the full application of the "own resources" system over the transitional period.
The Community has now put forward partial proposals to the applicant countries, including Ireland, on the question of financing. These do not contain certain crucial figures of the percentages to be applied in the case of each applicant country during each year of the transitional period. They do not, therefore, enable an estimate to be made of the precise contribution we would be paying to the Community Budget during the transitional period. However, we have been able to inform the Community that we accept their proposals relating to financial contributions as a basis for discussion. A fair degree of progress has been made in our negotiations on the question of the arrangements to apply for transition to full participation in the Community's customs union and in the common agricultural policy. The Community side put forward some time ago detailed proposals for both the industrial and agricultural sectors. The agricultural proposals which are mainly concerned with the mechanisms to apply during the transitional period, while full participation in the common agricultural policy is being phased in, require detailed study on our part.
There have been detailed discussions with the Commission to clarify aspects of the Community proposals. Some subordinate details of these proposals are still being worked out and it is not possible yet for us to see how precisely all aspects of our agricultural arrangements would be affected and what problems might arise in the detailed implementation of the proposals.
There are certain other points which we found it necessary to raise in relation to our particular interests. However, subject to these two provisos, we were able to inform the Community side at the negotiating meeting last week that the arrangements proposed in the agricultural sector appear to be generally satisfactory to us. I do not propose to go into detail on the various points we found it necessary to raise in connection with proposals on transitional arrangements for agriculture. The Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries will be dealing with these in some detail during the course of this debate. I should perhaps mention two of these points which are of considerable importance from our point of view.
One point relates to our concern that in the application of the mechanisms of the common agricultural policy from the beginning of the transitional period, to which we have agreed, there should not be any diminution, however temporary, in the degree of freedom of trade provided for in the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement. In our view—and we have stressed this to the Community from the beginning of the negotiations—the transitional arrangements should be directed towards the diminution of such obstacles to trade between Ireland and Britain as are not required to be removed under the agreement.
The second point relating to transitional measures for agriculture which I wish to mention concerns the financing of these measures. As yet, the Community has not made specific proposals on this question. This is a matter of considerable importance for us and we expect that the measures for agricultural finance will provide that, from the beginning of the transitional period, the cost of all refunds in respect of exports to other countries of the enlarged Community and to third countries, as well as the cost of intervention measures in the new member states, will be met in full from the Community's agricultural fund.
I should like to refer to the question of the timetables for the harmonisation of agricultural prices with the Community's common prices, and for the dismantling of tariffs on intra-Community trade and a alignment of customs duties with the common customs tariff. The timetables included in the Community's proposals on transitional measures in the agricultural and industrial sectors provided for the alignment of agricultural prices in five equal steps in each of the marketing years 1973 to 1977 and for the elimination of tariffs on intra-Community trade also in five equal steps, the last being in mid-1977. However, the agreement reached recently between the Community and Britain on transitional measures, while providing for the elimination of industrial tariffs in five equal steps over four-and-a-half years, incorporates an agricultural timetable of six equal steps over five years. This alternative agricultural timetable has not yet been put to us by the Community as a proposal. Before leaving the matter of transitional arrangements, I should like to mention that we can also record appreciable progress in our negotiations on the other aspects of these arrangements. In the case of such matters as safeguard measures, drawbacks, the base date for basic duties and the treatment of fiscal customs duties, solutions satisfactory from our point of view are nearing finalisation.
I need not take the House through all the other matters that have been raised in our negotiations. They are dealt with fully in the report on the progress of the negotiations supplied to all Deputies. Most of these matters have not yet re-emerged into the negotiations as the proposals which we have made and the material we have furnished in support of our case are still under examination by the Community. The present position on these issues is as set out in the progress report, although Community examination of them will have advanced considerably and we would expect to receive the Community reaction to some of them in the very near future.
With regard to those matters which have not already been dealt with and on which certain progress has been made in negotiations, I shall give a brief résumé of the position. Other Ministers will be speaking in more detail in the debate on those items which are their specific responsibility.
First, I shall mention tariff quotas because there has been considerable progress in the negotiations on this matter. This is also an item on which there has been multilateral negotiations involving the Community and the four applicant countries. We requested tariff quotas for items such as plywood, wood pulp, newsprint and unwrought aluminium and we asked that the present Community suspension of duty on tea be made permanent. We are very close to finalising satisfactory solutions with the Community in the matter of our request in regard to those products.
Will the Taoiseach please name the items again? He stated plywood and aluminium and some other items.
I mentioned newsprint and also that the suspension of duty on tea be made permanent.
The other items are tariff quotas?
Yes. The question of Ireland's accession to Euratom is a matter on which there has been considerable progress. There do not appear to be any problems of significance involved for us in our accession to Euratom and it should be possible to reach final agreement on this matter in the near future.
With regard to the questions of dumping and the motor-car assembly industry, we have made detailed submissions in support of our position and there have been detailed clarification discussions with the Commission. We hope it will be possible for the Community to give reactions to our proposals shortly. I should like to point out that we cannot exclude the possibility that with matters likely to be concentrated in the coming weeks on the major issues in the negotiations as a whole, it may not be possible for the Community to deal with dumping or the motor-car assembly industry for some time.
I have already mentioned Anglo-Irish trading arrangements in dealing with our reaction to the Community proposals on transitional measures. We shall be pursuing this matter in the context of the negotiations on an overall solution on transitional measures. Our concern is to ensure that during the transitional period, while Ireland and Britain are proceeding towards full participation in the Community's customs union and common agricultural policy, there should not be any diminution of rights and benefits under existing trading relationships between the two countries created by the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement.
The question of fisheries is a matter to which the Government attach major importance in the negotiations. As with other Community decisions which have been taken in implementation of the Treaties since they came into force, the Communities have stated that the applicant countries are required to accept decisions in relation to the common fisheries policy. However, we have found it necessary to emphasise again and again to the Community from our first negotiating meeting that there is one aspect of the fisheries policy which is causing us serious concern because of the problems to which it could give rise for our fishing interests. This is the provision for common access to the waters of each member state by fishing vessels from other member states. In recent years our fishing industry has shown a considerable capacity for further development. The Government are anxious that that capacity should be expanded and that nothing should happen at this crucial stage which would hamper or prevent this growth. We are concerned that free access to our waters could lead to the depletion, and even the wiping out, of fish stocks.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs has raised this question of free access at every negotiating meeting that he has had to date with the Community. We have presented a detailed paper on the matter to the Communities and officials have had discussions with the Commission for the purpose of clarifying the scope and content of the fisheries policy regulations. The Government are fully conscious of the anxiety of our fishermen in relation to common access to our fishery waters and we intend to pursue the matter in the negotiations. The Communities have been so informed.
Animal and plant health is another matter of concern to us. We wish to preserve this country's freedom from certain major epizootic diseases by continuing to apply our veterinary control on imports of livestock and livestock products and also to have exemption, in respect of our trade with Britain, in certain of the Community requirements in regard to testing for brucellosis and tuberculosis. We have made a detailed submission to the Community in the matter and our officials have had talks with the Commission for the purpose of clarifying our position. Technically, the matter is a very complex one and the Community may not be in a position to return to it for some time in the negotiations.
The question of our industrial incentives is one of considerable importance to us in the context of the negotiations. With regard to our financial aids to industry we consider that these are compatible with the EEC Treaty. We wish to continue our scheme of export tax reliefs after our accession to the Community for the remainder of their statutory life, that is, up to 1990. We have so informed the Community. We shall be making a detailed case for the export tax reliefs at an opportune time in the negotiations.
In February last the Council of the Communities adopted a resolution and two implementing decisions on the realisation, by stages, of economic and monetary union in the Community. The definitive texts of these instruments have been furnished to us by the Community and the intention is that they will be discussed with Ireland and the other applicant countries in due course. The implications of the Community's resolution and decision on economic and monetary union have been under close study by the Departments here in the light of our own special interests particularly in relation to regional policy. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, at his meeting with the Communities on the 2nd March, made a statement in which he indicated the broad objectives of our economic development policy and outlined the means used to achieve this objective. Also, he indicated the views of the Government on the aims and characteristics that would be appropriate to the regional policy of the enlarged Community in progressing towards economic and monetary union.
Deputies were circulated some weeks ago with a document which set out the Government's views as presented to the Community. As a follow up to the Minister's statement and in anticipation of discussions with the Community, we propose to submit shortly to the Community a detailed memorandum on this highly important matter.
Work is progressing as between the applicant countries and the Community on the technical adaptations which require to be made to the Treaties of Rome and Paris and the implementing Community legislation to take account of the accession of the applicant countries. This work served the added useful purpose for ourselves and the other applicant countries of helping to clarify the various Community enactments and to identify matters which present problems and which need to be pursued in the negotiations proper. There is an enormous amount of detailed work involved here for many of our Departments.
Before concluding this review of our negotiations to date, perhaps I should refer briefly to two matters that were covered in the report on the progress of the negotiations but which have not arisen in any substantive way in the negotiations proper. I refer to the questions of the right of establishment in agricultural land and structural reform in agriculture. The present situation in the Community on this question of right of establishment in agricultural land—that is the right of a national of one state to acquire agricultural land in another member state —is set out in a leaflet issued some time ago by the EEC information service of the Department of Foreign Affairs. This leaflet, copies of which were circulated to Deputies, sets out also our position in the negotiations on this subject. The matter has not come up so far in the negotiations but it continues to be our intention to raise, if necessary in relation to the introduction in the Community of the question of establishment of agricultural land, our need to maintain sufficient control of the disposal of land in this country and to enable us to pursue policies to deal with such structural problems as exist.
The position in regard to the question of structural reform of agriculture in the Community has advanced since the report on the progress of negotiations was circulated to Deputies. In March last the Community Council agreed on measures for the structural reform of agriculture. The resolution adopted is by way of being a blueprint and full details of the proposed measures have yet to be worked out. The Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries will be dealing with this subject during his intervention later in this debate. The measures agreed by the Council differ in a number of significant ways from the original proposals of the Mansholt Plan. The expectation now is that the negotiations as a whole can be brought to a successful conclusion by the end of this year. In this event, the date of accession for the applicant countries, including ours, of 1st January, 1973, can be adhered to. This will leave the year 1972 for the necessary ratifications and preparatory procedures.
Given that the negotiations will be concluded by the end of this year the Government would then propose to publish, without delay, the terms of accession in the form of a White Paper. This would be debated and voted on in the House. On the basis of the House voting in favour of the terms of accession, the Government would subsequently set in motion the procedures for the amendments to the Constitution which our accession to the Community would necessitate. The procedures as prescribed in Article 46 of the Constitution are that:
Every proposal for an amendment of this Constitution shall be initiated in Dáil Éireann as a Bill, and shall upon having been passed or deemed to have been passed by both Houses of the Oireachtas, be submitted by Referendum to the decision of the people in accordance with the law for the time being in force relating to the Referendum.
I might say, in connection with the referendum, it is my intention that the issues be put as clearly and as simply as possible so that people will be under no illusion or misapprehension that they will be voting for or against entry to the European Communities.
Our ratification of the instruments of our accession to the European Communities would be on the basis of a vote in the referendum in favour of the proposed Constitutional amendments. At present I am not in a position to indicate the precise timing of the referendum but it would be such as to enable the accession of this country to the Communities by 1st January, 1973. It is the Government's intention in these regular debates on the European Communities to keep the House informed as to the stage reached in our negotiations and the progress made. The Minister for Foreign Affairs will also be making available to Deputies further progress reports as appropriate as the negotiations advance.
Our negotiations and those of the other applicant countries are concerned essentially with economic trading and related social matters. In membership of the enlarged Communities, the Government see—we have emphasised this repeatedly—the economic and trading environment in which we can best hope to realise for this country those goals on which all of us must be fully agreed: the expansion of our economy at a pace and to an extent that would enable this country to achieve full employment, the cessation of involuntary emigration and a standard of living for our people comparable to that of any other country in western Europe.
There are those who would say that in full involvement in the European Communities we would inevitably lose our national identity as a nation and as a people, that our national sovereignty would disappear. But these people completely overlook the very nature of the Community, which demands that the interests of all member states must be fully taken into account and provided for. As for loss of national identity, who can say that any of the present member states, as proud and independent as we are, have sacrificed any of their national identity in their membership of the Community? Indeed, it is instructive to note the similarity of views expressed by President Pompidou and Mr. Heath in their recent meeting on how they see the enlarged Communities developing. Both emphasise the need to maintain the identity of national states within the framework of enlarged and developing Communities. They found further common ground in agreeing, in effect, that in the enlarged Communities the vital national interests of any member state should not be over-ruled.
I have mentioned the development of the enlarged Communities and I think it is appropirate in this connection, and in conclusion, to say that the Government are also fully conscious of those political objectives which, in the words of the Hague communique, give the Communities their meaning and purpose. We have declared ourselves ready to join with the other member states of the enlarged Communities in working towards the achievement of these political objectives, the ever closer union among European peoples of which the preamble to the Treaty of Rome speaks, the Europe which the present member States envisage, is as the heads of States or Governments declared at the Hague in December, 1969:
A Europe composed of States which, in spite of their different national characteristics, are united in their essential interests, assured of its internal cohesion, true to its friendly relations with outside countries, conscious of the role it has to play in promoting the relaxation of international tensions and the rapprochement among all people and, first and foremost among those of the entire European Continent, whose creation is indispensable if the mainspring of development, progress and culture, world equilibrium and peace is to be preserved.
This is surely an ideal which finds a ready and sympathetic response in the Irish people. It is a goal the realisation of which we surely wish to participate in fully as a member of the enlarged Communities.
I took a little more time than I anticipated. Unfortunately, I could not go into any more detail but the other members of the Government who will speak will, perhaps, give more details in relation to matters affecting their own Ministers. The Minister for Foreign Affairs will reply and take up any points that may emerge in the course of the debate.
The Taoiseach's review covered a number of matters that have already been discussed not merely during the past year but some over the years since this country originally applied for membership. He dealt with certain matters that are the subject of concern generally in the situation that has developed since negotiations were reopened and I think it is important at this stage that the House and the country should be aware of the special and specific problems in defined areas that will affect this country or that may be regarded as sensitive ones. In that situation the Government have a responsibility not just to carry out the negotiations efficiently but to ensure that people generally fully understand what is happening and what the precise implications of the various developments are.
It is true that there is a general uneasiness about the prospect of membership of the European Economic Community, partly due to the inevitable nervousness at the prospect of change or at the prospect of getting into an unknown situation, but also due to the inability of the Government up to date to inform public opinion adequately on a number of matters. In the last few months the Minister for Foreign Affairs has issued from his Department and circulated many of his own speeches or comments. While that may be regarded as complying with the undertaking to keep the House and country informed, the manner in which some of these documents have been issued and the delay in issuing others resulted in failure generally to generate the kind of understanding and climate of opinion necessary to prepare the country for the very serious challenge involved in membership.
It is notable that some other bodies such as the Irish Council of the European Movement and groups opposed to Common Market membership, have been more alert in getting out documentation than the Department or the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
The informing of public opinion is important not merely to secure agreement to the proposals which will ultimately be put forward in the referendum but in getting the community as a whole and the different sections of it to take the necessary adequate and effective preparatory steps for membership.
The effective preparation requires that people be properly and fully informed about what is involved. There will be a number of other speakers to deal with three specific aspects of the negotiations that are being conducted at present: the problem of our fisheries, regional policies and the contribution which this country will have to make to the Community budget during the transitional period.
When this matter was discussed, just about a year ago here, after the publication of the White Paper the problem of our fisheries was adverted to in the course of a number of speeches, including my own, and since then the matter has been the subject of considerable concern throughout the country, especially by those affected or likely to be affected, the people who derive their livelihood from the fishing industry, almost exclusively inshore fishermen. It is precisely on this particular aspect of the matter that one is concerned at the statements that have appeared initially in the White Paper, and that would appear to conflict with the document which was issued by the Department of Foreign Affairs in May of this year.
In the White Paper, Membership of the European Communities—Implications for Ireland, reference is made at page 46 to the fact that a common policy for fisheries had not yet been adopted but that certain proposals had been submitted for a common fisheries policy in 1968. The last sentence in that paragraph states: “On balance, however, the prospects for Irish fisheries in an enlarged Community are favourable.” That White Paper was published in April of last year as a considered White Paper on the part of the Government and it seems to me that it is in direct conflict with the document issued in May of this year. One could understand it if the situation had altered appreciably but, in fact, this document states:
Common access to fishery waters would, however, create grave difficulties for Irish fishermen. They depend almost entirely on landings from within our exclusive fishery limits and would find it difficult to compete with better equipped fleets. Further, free access to our waters could lead to over-fishing and have a detrimental effect on the level of fish stocks on those waters.
This is in line with some of the remarks which the Taoiseach made in his speech. I find this particular reference follows the document presented by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, or on his behalf, to the European Communities in September of last year in which he stated that the question of access to fishing grounds was a matter of particular concern to Ireland because the Irish fishing industry is based on inshore fishing and Ireland has no deep sea fishing fleet. Certain statistics including details of the numbers employed, the quantity and value of fish, the fish catch, the landings and also the exports were given.
This brings up the question of what particular replies the Community have given. As I understand it a number of documents have been submitted on behalf of this country to the Community but any replies received have been couched in particularly vague language. In the reply adverted to here the Community delegations stated they were always ready to take careful note of any statement which the applicant countries might make or any documentation which they might like to submit on the subject of the common fisheries policy.
The fishery regulation was only made in October in between the White Paper and the last document.
That could at least have been anticipated because, as I have said, the matter was adverted to. There was a long gap between October and May when this document was issued, but there is another aspect of this. I understand that Norway has put forward specific proposals in respect of inshore fishermen. Norway has advocated that the coastal waters should be preserved for residents. It has been repeatedly stated that if a common policy is adopted in the European Economic Community it would apply to all member countries. This might be described as a somewhat ingenious proposal but at any rate it is a specific proposal designed to preserve the position of the inshore fishermen in Norway and to prevent outside fleets from fishing in the area.
I should like to know if this country proposes any similar arrangement. It is important that we appreciate our fisheries are not just an important Irish asset but an important European asset and that conservation by wise policies must be recognised not just as our responsibility but as the responsibility of the EEC as a whole, which would lose an important natural resource if these fisheries are destroyed either by over-fishing or by the use of damaging methods or gear. The prime responsibility rests with us, as the member of the Community most immediately concerned, to put forward to the EEC a conservation plan, if not identical to the Norwegian plan at least one that will bring before the Community the importance of this industry to our people and especially the grave situation which will arise for our people in our fishing areas for whom virtually no alternative employment is available. That is essential because whatever prospects other countries may have those of us who are aware of the situation here agree that it is not possible to find new opportunities for employment in or adjacent to the main fishery areas. Despite the steps which have been taken the promotion or assistance of industrial development has been only a marginal success. Indeed, in some cases efforts to provide alternative employment have been very limited. Because of the numbers employed in the fishery industry and because of their inability to get alternative employment it is important we should put forward specific definite proposals. It is not sufficient to tag along behind Norway or Britain because the economic importance to this country of our inshore fisheries is a very significant factor and indeed it is the livelihood of a whole range of areas. The situation makes it essential that we put forward constructive proposals instead of merely adverting to the problem and awaiting replies.
The fact that Norway found it possible to do this follows on a similar approach in respect of regional policy in relation to Southern Italy where certain specific matters have been decided upon and, as I understand it, proposals for specific regional arrangements in respect of Northern Norway have been made.
The problem I mentioned initially on the question of EEC membership is that there is still a great deal of misunderstanding about what is involved in membership and what kind of response is called for from both individuals and organisations.
In this regard the Government have themselves some responsibility for the situation. Matters requiring difficult decisions have been postponed, delayed or avoided. That is particularly the case in relation to the dairying industry. Only recently a good deal of attention was focussed on the fact that in Clare some, if not all, of the creameries there have failed to modernise because of the delay on the part of the Government in taking a decision. As a result of that these creameries are obtaining lower prices than those in, say, Mitchelstown or other areas where the creameries have been both rationalised and modernised. We cannot put off uncomfortable or difficult decisions and these are decisions affecting the capacity of our farmers to compete effectively. Not alone Dr. Mansholt but other spokesmen also who have come here from the EEC have highlighted these problems and it is incumbent on the Government to take action irrespective of how difficult the decisions may be.
Another aspect of Common Market membership that causes concern is the terms which will operate in respect of industry during the transitional period. There is a great deal of concern about our industrial inability. This must be recognised. The Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement has been in operation now for five years and some of the problems of industry may be attributed to that agreement. Some are not directly attributable to it but, whether they are attributable or not, because difficulties have coincided with the period of operation of the agreement, nearly everybody affected attributes the difficulties to the effects or influences of that agreement. It is absolutely essential, therefore, that no similar as a result of EEC membership will cause people to hesitate to accept membership, provided the terms are right.
I gather from the concluding remarks of the Taoiseach that the question of our volume of trade with Britain was referred to in the discussions with the European Economic Community. Because of the volume of our trade with Britain and because of the historical interconnection, going back for generations, it is impossible for this country to unscramble, as it were, its trading arrangements and trading relations with Britain; and if Britain becomes a member of the Community our position outside the Community would be not merely more difficult but would be even worse than our present position, difficult as that is, in respect of our trade with Britain.
Clearly there are unknown factors that no amount of documentation so far issued has adequately dealt with. Certainly the documentation has not allayed the suspicions of those who are concerned and anxious about all this. There is a reference in the White Paper to an expected or anticipated rise of 11 to 16 per cent in the cost of living. That rate of increase over a five-year period would be relatively small. With a rise of 8 per cent in recent years and a pretty constant pattern for the last two or three years of anything from 7 to 10 per cent, an additional increase of 1 or 2 per cent in the transitional period does not appear very alarming. Nevertheless, the prospects of sharp increases in the cost of living is something which must worry people. The Government should try to bring out detailed facts and figures of the precise effect and the items likely to be affected. The compensatory advantage is the fact that we will get higher prices and, one would hope, a larger market for our agricultural products. This is where I think the Government have been imprecise. This is where the Government must be specific. There will be a saving of what is at the moment an undefined figure or one that has not been accurately calculated, in respect of subsidies to farmers. If higher prices for agricultural products mean a saving in subsidy to farmers then those on social welfare benefits, pensioners, those living on fixed incomes, and those in the lower income group, are entitled to have a specific undertaking and a clear commitment that the moneys saved will be used to compensate them for whatever increases occur in the cost of living. This could be done in a variety of ways. The important thing is that those concerned should know. Such knowledge would go a considerable distance towards allaying public concern about price increases.
When the Government issued statements in anticipation of the introduction of decimalisation there was the definite suggestion that prices would level off; if some things were up others would go down. The fact is there has been a price explosion since decimalisation. People are appalled at the rise in prices. Everything, with the exception of public telephone calls, has increased in price since February. If that is to be the pattern following our entry into the EEC it is only inevitable that people will react against it and express their doubts as to the adequacy of the preparations made and the failure of the Government to make specific comments in regard to the subsidies which will be saved on agricultural products. The Government should indicate at some stage the anticipated changes. I gather the Minister for Foreign Affairs has discussed the timetable. Whether the timetable in respect of agriculture is a five-year period or, as in the case of Britain, a six-year period in equal steps, it ought to be possible to indicate the anticipated savings in respect of agricultural subsidies and the areas in which it is proposed to provide assistance and the categories of pensioners and social welfare recipients it is intended to cover in providing relief.
With reference to the remarks of the Taoiseach on our contribution to the Budget for the transitional period, it is important, if not to get the actual position—because the figures may not be available—to find out on what basis it is expected the contribution will be assessed and how it is proposed to calculate it.
Another question that arises, in the event of Britain and this country becoming members, is what will be the position in respect of the existing customs border between ourselves and the North of Ireland. It has been repeatedly stated that, in the context of Britain and this country both becoming Members of the EEC, the economic and financial absurdity of the Border will become more and more obvious. There is no reference, that I can discover, to this problem in any of the documentation that has been issued and it is one that should be dealt with.
At the end of the speech the Taoiseach referred to two matters, first, to the right of establishment, which was discussed in the earlier debate, and I believe it is essential that this aspect of the matter should be clarified, and secondly, the structural reform of agriculture. The disease-free reputation which this country has in respect of animals is one we should cherish zealously. I noted from the Taoiseach's remarks that certain epizootic diseases have been the subject of discussion with the Community. This is something of which we realise the value only when we have experienced some epidemics that have occurred in other countries, for instance foot and mouth disease, of which we have had experience. There are a number of other diseases, and this is a very important matter in connection with which I am sure the scientific and veterinary staff of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries will take the appropriate steps.
It has always been our view that there must be a referendum before this country can become a member of the European Economic Community. This referendum should be separate from any other on proposed constitutional amendments. It is the people who must make this decision. We can discuss the question, advert to the arrangements and put the facts before the people but, in the last analysis, they must decide. At some stage either during this debate or later it ought to be possible to spell out the Articles that must be amended. The terms of entry will, of course, be another thing, but the actual Articles that require to be amended should be known at this stage and it ought to be possible to indicate the form of the amendments and the precise changes necessary. It is important that the specific items that are absolutely necessary should be clearly put before the people in the form of a referendum and should be separate from any other proposed constitutional amendments.
The usefulness of debates of this character will be increased if they are held on a regular basis. I do not personally have any great faith in protracted debates, but this is a situation which is changing now more rapidly than possibly at any other period since the Treaty of Rome was signed, certainly so far as this country and Britain, the country with which we have such great trading relations, are concerned. We should approach this matter in the clear knowledge of how this decision will affect this country in the future. The fact that it is partly a leap into the unknown is no reason why we should not endeavour to get as much information as possible and take the decision in the light of the information obtained, realising that this is not a situation in which we can stay out and hope that nothing will happen or go in and hope for the best. We must be prepared to take the necessary preparatory steps in the knowledge that our economic, financial and trading arrangements are as intimately concerned with any decisions or steps that are taken as are those of other European countries, that we take the decision as an independent State, and that in regard to other aspects of the matter such as sovereignty there is no commitment other than that involved in the specifically and clearly defined amendments in the Constitution. It is important that the terms must be clearly defined and put specifically to the people as a single matter for their consideration.
I had intended to devote some time to what the Taoiseach said in opening the debate but, having listened to him carefully, I find not only is there no necessity to do so but there is no possibility of doing so for the reason that he said nothing. This was a perfect example of taking up the time without any content whatsoever. The Taoiseach's failure to make a speech on this could be a matter of inability, or a lack of understanding, but even if he did not have the ability himself there are people in the employment of the Government, people in the public service——
The Deputy need not start to be acrimonious in the very first sentence.
I think it is sufficiently serious and sufficiently outrageous to merit being acrimonious. I would say why if the Taoiseach will listen to me.
We are hoping for a constructive speech.
The Taoiseach will get a constructive speech, too constructive for his choice. Even if the Taoiseach himself were not capable of doing it, even if he were preoccupied, there are people who could do it for him. In fact, however, this non-speech is a very deliberate tactic. The tactic here is to scramble us into the Community without anybody realising or discussing or understanding the issues involved.
In the Labour Party we welcomed the exercise in planning that was undertaken more than a decade ago by the economists both in the public service and near the public service. We had always believed in planning. We had always believed in the exercise of economic expertise. We had always believed in the necessity of having economic models and trying to make plans for the development of the economy. After the First and Second Programmes, what is the use of economic expertise on the part of the public servants, for whom we all pay, in relation to expositions on the level of employment, on the level of exports, on the level of farm production, indeed, on the level of farm employment as well as industrial employment? Where are those expositions? Where are the economic markets? Where is the expertise in the economy? Not just missing surely, but being suppressed because were that expertise to be employed, were the calculations of all these important things that the Irish people want to know about to be worked out and stated now, then, of course, the arguments for entry would be seen to be as weak and as shabby by everybody as they really are.
It is not an accident then that we do not just have a low key debate but we have the effort to suppress all debate on this subject. We have in essence a fairly simple position on the part of Fianna Fáil, which is to say that we have no choice, that there is no choice before the nation, however awful it seems to us, except to be full members. Therefore, we have taken up this very remarkable and, in my view, disgraceful negotiating position of throwing away every card in our hands in advance. Both of the major parties in Britain, an old experienced nation, good at protecting its own interest, have said: "Let us go ahead and negotiate. Let us look at the package and, if it is satisfactory, we will recommend it."
I shall read into the record some excerpts from Dr. Hillery's speech on 30th June last year in Luxembourg. It was circulated, it is an official speech, but, as it was made outside Ireland, the people of Ireland are perhaps not aware of quite how supine our negotiating position is. On page 2, paragraph 4 of the officially circulated Department of External Affairs text of Dr. Hillery's speech, we read:
When applying for membership of the European Economic Community in 1961, the Irish Government affirmed without qualification that they shared the ideals... as well as the action proposed to achieve those aims.
That was said in 1961 without qualification. It was reiterated in 1967 by the Taoiseach. It was reiterated again in 1970. Dr. Hillery also said:
I now reaffirm, on behalf of the Irish Government, our full acceptance of the Treaties of Rome and Paris, their political finality and economic objectives and the decisions taken to implement them.
That sentence to me can only mean that our Government accept, without qualification, the decisions taken to implement the Treaty of Rome including, without qualification, the fisheries agreement. It is implicit in it.
Paragraph 5 reads:
My Government accept the political objectives.
Paragraph 6 says:
My Government welcome the declaration ... to promote the development of the Community towards an economic and monetary union.
The finest of them all, paragraph 7, reads:
The Irish Government accept equally the economic obligations arising from the provisions of the Treaties and the action and decisions taken by the Communities in implementing them.
Finally, in regard to the common agricultural policy, he said:
We fully support the action taken by the Community to implement that policy.
It could hardly be more fulsome and this at the beginning of negotiations by the smallest, weakest, the slowest growing, the poorest economy of ten apart from Luxembourg which is a special case. We have no reservations; our Government can accept all these things "without qualification". Of course they cannot, but it is a ridiculous posture to throw away your hand completely in advance. The question really is whether there is an alternative. Because of our supine position the Government have to say, and some of them may even believe, that there is no alternative. It is not possible, of course, to be specific about an alternative until you negotiate. I cannot from these benches lay down the small print of an alternative but I should like to ask the Government a few questions, not perhaps to be replied to in this debate but if we are having another debate in a month's time they could be replied to.
With how many countries in the world does the present Community of Six have free trade in industrial products? What is being dishonestly represented to the Irish people by Fianna Fáil spokesmen is that, if we choose something other than full membership, we will thereby lost the two-thirds of our external trade which is with the UK or the four-fifths or 80 per cent which goes to the other nine. It is represented and it is widely believed—it would be nice to have a Government spokesman say specifically that his Government do not believe this because they have given the impression that they do—that if we stayed outside of full membership there is nothing we could negotiate which would protect this four-fifths of our trade. It has been sold to people all over the country on the basis that, however much we may fear it, however much we may hate it, however much we may want to preserve the traditions of our nationality and of our whole political struggle, it is impossible to stay outside because we would lose all our trade and that there are huge tariff barriers which we could not climb over.
This simply does not bear examination. It would be useful to have the economists in the public service, who are paid to serve all of us, working out and telling people—they do not need to work out; they know as we all know —how big the tariffs are and what the likely evolution of tariffs will be, with how many countries are there free trading agreements in regard to industrial products, with how many in regard to agricultural products.
I shall try to adhere to the time limit given to us all, but I shall briefly give my estimation of the situation if we wanted to seek a trade agreement, not associate membership because associate membership is on the road to becoming a full member. In my view what Europe needs is a federation of independent, sovereign, non-aligned, neutral, free-trading nations. There are quite a lot of sovereign nations in Europe of the same opinion—the Austrians, the Finns, the Swedes and the Swiss, for example. We could put together a few more if we set about it instead of trying to crawl in on any conditions. For example, the Yugoslavs have a beef agreement with the EEC. In fact, the great arguments that were meant to terrify us all three or four years ago about the "butter mountain" and what would happen to our dairy industry if we did not become full members are no longer serious arguments when we see the evolution of the dairy industry all over western Europe and indeed North America. Of course the Community will make arrangements to let in things it needs.
We should have an honest argument of the prospects inside and outside, with some hard figures and projections and some efforts to quantify. We have at present a very interesting and illuminating example of what the Swedes are doing. In the early 1930s, the standards of living in Sweden and Ireland were comparable. In 1931 the Swedes got a social democratic Government and they are now the second richest country in the world. In 1932 this country got a Fianna Fáil Government, and, apart from places like Spain and Portugal, we are now the poorest country in Europe. The Swedes are determined to protect their national economy, which is much bigger, much richer, much more sophisticated and dynamic than ours, against the right of other nations to establish inside their country. They believe it is in the national interest. They are determined to control the flow of capital. We were so strong, so powerful and so dynamic financially that we did not need to do it.
There is no such thing as imperialism any more. It is a dirty word. We did not have to worry about financial control. The Swedes worried profoundly knowing that the loss, even in their economy, of control over capital flow would damage their industry. The only posture to take is to try to optimise the benefits and minimise the drawbacks. The benefits are absolutely real and nobody, seriously looking at the Community denies they exist. Total exclusion of the reality of this dynamic area is as ridiculous in my view as saying that we must go in without any reservations or any conditions.
We ought to have explored the effects of our entry into the Community but we did not. We ought to have sounded countries with similar interests together with whom we could have joint negotiating positions. We accept, without reservations, the monetary principles of the Community but if we get a freezing of exchange rates, and this applies to the UK as well as to Ireland, then over the next decade if we cannot guard our position by progressive devaluation, if the rates are all locked together, we will be emptied of capital and of industry and, therefore, of population. If we had free trade but sovereignty we could protect the outflow of capital, we could protect the right to have a taxation system with social objectives more radical than the present objectives of the Community. Sweden cannot accept the taxation principles because it would mean dismantling a great deal of their social security position.
There are a few points upon which I should like to have specific answers. It seems to me that signature of the Treaty of Rome automatically implies acceptance as permanent of the present boundary arrangements. I can see no way out of that. Member nations may have arguments with countries outside. That is all right. When we talk about parts of the Constitution we have to alter I do not see any way we could keep Article 3. This may not be important. It would be nice to discuss it and it would be nice to know whether it was possible to retain our aspirations and the phrase "pending the unification of the national territory". Deputies on all sides of the House will know what I am talking about. Let us discuss within this legal framework our relations with the United Kingdom, the question of the legal status of the Border, and whether signing the Treaty of Rome means accepting it in law forever. We are promised a new republican party more republican than the old one. I do not have any opinion on that but if they are thinking of forming a party I would ask them, if they want to lay any claim to the title of republican, to think their position through on the question of EEC membership. If they want to uphold the present Government position it seems to me they would have to jettison just as much republicanism as Fianna Fáil have already jettisoned.
Land ownership was spoken about. There is the Government position; there is the EEC position; there are pious platitudes about our intentions and our wish to protect our national territory; there are the intentions of the Treaty of Rome, the evolution of the Community, the basic ideology of all of the significant technocrats in Brussels. You can have a holding operation which will last five years or ten years. The Danes are trying to think up a way to protect their national territory from purchase. It would be nice to hear a discussion on what mechanisms our Government in negotiations are proposing because five years or ten years in the matter of ownership of national land is not worth a damn. It may be very important to us here and it may be very important when one is thinking of the next election but in terms of national evolution it is of no significance whatever.
It is about time as a nation we had a bit of good fortune in terms of national resources apart from our climate and our grassland. We have an enormous continental shelf. Britain has just discovered a major oil field in part of her continental shelf in the North Sea. We have our part of the Irish Sea but there is also the Atlantic out to the 600 fathom line. We have very special rights by the 1964 United Nations agreement on the continental shelf. I am not saying that there is a national bonanza around the corner but maybe there is oil and maybe there is natural gas. It may be that there are mineral aggregates on the ocean floor but technology is coming along very fast to exploit them. This is an area vastly greater than the land part of Ireland and we may at last have a bit of luck on our continental shelf. If there is the free right to establish for non-national companies do we have any way to protect an Irish involvement in the continental shelf? Is the first bit of luck we ever had in terms of national resources to be thrown away? Has anybody looked into the rights of the other nations in our negotiations? It would be nice to have some answers to that.
Let us talk briefly about fisheries. The Taoiseach is not here now but he said he thought agreement was reached in October last year. He said this in an interjection in Deputy Cosgrave's speech. I have not got the documentation in front of me but my recollection of the timetable is that agreement was already in print in July. The Norwegians were kicking up murder in April and more specifically in May. The details of the EEC policy on fisheries were known by June last year. It was raised in these benches and in the Fine Gael benches in July last year.
June.
That is better because it is earlier. Our Government got round to saying something about it in September when their co-negotiators, the Norwegians, were at it, by public knowledge, from April and probably from much earlier. In the Government document presented to this House in April, 1970 it was stated that the fishery situation, would be beneficial to us. This quotation was given by Deputy Cosgrave. You could hardly have greater messing, incompetence and non-negotiating than that. Nobody was negotiating because we accepted without reservation all those marvellous things.
The Taoiseach in his speech today was trying to get a fiddle in, that it is just to protect our stocks from over fishing, that provided there is the sort of agreement that there is not over fishing we can have a fair crack at it. This is not the core of the objection. The core of the objection is that we have a new, fragile, inshore industry not in a position to compete with the bigger, richer, more capitalised and more experienced industries of our competitor nations. If it was left to free enterprise it would never have got off the ground. It was a joint effort of private and public enterprise. The entirely laudable efforts of BIM profoundly helped in this. We are in the process of destroying it. British Conservative MPs—Robert Boothby is an example—who are interested in fishery constituencies have said that they will vote against it whatever the Tory Party stand is, as a matter of conscience and a matter of responsibility to their own constituents and the industry in their constituencies, if the fishery arrangement is not satisfactory.
I should like to ask a question of some Deputies. There is an important fishery industry in North County Dublin, the constituency of my colleague, Deputy Foley. He has shown a little independence recently. Will he show some independence on this? Deputy Paudge Brennan should be concerned about the Wicklow coast. Is he prepared to vote against Fianna Fáil if this is not arranged satisfactorily? I saw Deputy Haughey in Howth during a recent weekend. There will not be any Howth fish to have a festival about if this policy goes through. The daddy of them all, where the fishery industry is really booming and where it is really important economically, is Donegal. Perhaps Deputy Blaney will be faced with a choice if he wants to show republican loyalty to his own constituents and to an important industry in his constituency.
Since we are talking about particular interests, we have not heard much about the horticultural industry. Anything I heard about it was as fatuous as the Government statement in April, 1970, that our fisheries would not suffer, which they had to swallow subsequently. Horticulture is a struggling infant industry here. It is particularly important to me as a North County Dublin Deputy. There are other places where it is growing. Have the Government anything to say about that—anything sensible or realistic? Perhaps the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries who is in the House would like to say something about it when his turn comes. Perhaps my fellow Deputies from that constituency would like to take a stand on this issue when the terms are presented.
We cannot believe in the Government's non-negotiating position. We cannot call it a negotiating position. We cannot accept the Government's failure to negotiate and to retain any remnant or shred of republicanism—not a tiny bit. I was pleased to read a speech made by Deputy Donegan recently at the Fine Gael Ard-Fheis. A number of speeches were made by Deputy Ryan on defence. I am pleased with the attitude taken by the leader of the Fine Gael Party here today. I am glad that the Fine Gael Party are starting to uphold what I consider to be the interests of the Irish nation on this issue. I welcome the fact that they realise that this is a profoundly nationally dangerous issue and that the Government are betraying the people. I am glad Fine Gael are starting to fight this while there is still time to do something about it.
There is no way to retain the faintest remnant of Irish republicanism and to accept without reservation the political implications of the Treaty of Rome at the same time. If people want to accept the political implications of the Treaty of Rome that is their right and good luck to them, but they should stop being hypocrites about the issue of republicanism, the issue of independence and the issue of sovereignty because there is no way to protect sovereignty either. If people would say: "We will lose our sovereignty; we will cease to exist as a nation; but what we get will compensate us and we will get the better of the bargain" that would be OK, no quarrel. It is the hypocrisy which has been running through this as, indeed, it has been running through everything in the past few years that gives one a pain in various places.
In fact, the Fianna Fáil position on this is all of a piece with the Taoiseach's position about Northern Ireland. He had unanimous support in this House when he condemned a certain use of force and a certain resort to violence, but he did not have unanimous support in this House when he said that the question was solely an Irish question to be settled between Northern and Southern Ireland, and when he said suddenly that there was no such thing as British imperialism or, if the House does not like that phrase, when he said suddenly that there was no such thing as a British role and suddenly we had no need to continue struggling against economic domination and against the subjugation of our industry and, indeed, of our agriculture and our financial system by the UK.
That is all of a piece with the abolition of Ireland which, in fact, is the centre of the Fianna Fáil position on the EEC. If it is to be a rich, dynamic, super-power exploiting Africa, it may be that those of us who are left in the big farms of Ireland—and I did not talk about the farm evolution; I will do that another day—will be better off and richer. It may be that the few industries, relatively speaking, that survive will be dynamic and profitable for those who own them. This is quite possible. It would be nice to have the debate conducted in terms of the bluntness which would spell out what those of us who remain will gain that will compensate us for loss of identity, nationality, sovereignty and culture. The destruction of small farms is absolutely certain under the Mansholt Plan and that will involve the destruction of Gaelic culture, which is by no means the only strand in our culture but is an important one, and to which sincere importance is attached by many people including some members of the Fianna Fáil Party.
The Taoiseach talked about a referendum. He said he would put the issue as clearly and as simply as possible. I am almost two years in this House and I have been less than impressed during those two years by the Taoiseach's ability for putting things simply and clearly. In fact, I have been greatly impressed by his ability to make things unclear, and to complicate. Still, it is a welcome promise, a welcome assurance to the House that, when the issue is put, it will be put as clearly and as simply as possible. Perhaps we ought to say that it will be put as clearly and as simply as it is possible for the Taoiseach to put it, which is a totally different thing. It may get mixed up with many other issues.
Nevertheless, a referendum is inescapable. The people will understand what the real issues are about however they are dressed up and confused on the date. Our electorate will be sophisticated and perceptive, I believe, once they see what is going on. They will have a chance to deliberate. In the interval we will make clear to them what the real issue is, since an alternative exists, since we could have a trade agreement that would protect our industry, our agriculture, our exports and, at the same time, our sovereignty. The real issue is whether there is a valid future for a separate entity of an Irish nation or not. On that day, in that referendum, we will be found saying with all our strength that there is, in fact, a future for the Irish nation and that is what we will ask the Irish people to vote on.
The Chair understands there has been an agreement between the Whips of the various parties with regard to timing in this debate. At the moment we have run a little bit over time. There is an understanding about the concluding speeches on each side. Speakers will certainly get their full time. To facilitate that, intervening speakers would want to curtail their contributions slightly.
We have about 20 minutes to make up?
We have about 22 minutes to make up.
The accelerating pace of the negotiations on the enlargement of the Economic Community in Europe brings with it the growing realisation among Irish people in general that we are about to enter a new economic, social and political era in the life of our country. For our Irish farmers in particular it will be an era of challenge but I am confident that they will meet that challenge and successfully overcome any difficulties that arise. It will also be an era of opportunities for our farmers.
Freedom of access to a vast and growing and wealthy market of some 270,000,000 people, competition on fair and equal terms with their fellow-farmers in the enlarged Community, production and marketing within the framework of a comprehensively organised agricultural system, these are the things which make Common Market membership an attractive and challenging prospect for our farmers.
Over the years our farmers have not been able to realise the full production potential of their enterprises. This has happened not because of any lack of skill on their part, not through any lack of land resources, but because we have been confronted with the continuing difficulty of securing export market outlets at remunerative prices for our growing output of agricultural produce. The various restrictions operated by importing countries are not the only problem we have had to contend with. We have also been confronted with the unloading of surpluses by large industrialised countries at prices well below their production cost. This has particularly hit our traditional exports of milk products by curtailing outlets and depressing prices.
I should add here that all credit is due to our farmers, to our export boards and exporters generally for what they have achieved in the face of all these obstacles. Of course the Exchequer has had to play its part by contributing very substantially towards the support of agricultural exports. Some of those who are against our joining the EEC have put forward suggested alternatives to membership such as association or trade agreements. This, to my mind, shows a very scant knowledge of our agricultural industry and what it has had to contend with up to now and an equally scant knowledge of the unsuccessful attempts at international level to work out any kind of satisfactory arrangements for trade in agricultural products. We have had a hard enough struggle as it is in exporting our agricultural products but imagine the situation in which we would be if we were outside an enlarged Community which included within its protective barriers our main agricultural market, Great Britain. I would like to be told where we would sell our cattle and dairy produce. It is no answer simply to say that the Continent would need to import beef and that we could continue to be able to sell in the enlarged Community.
Most Irish farmers will remember the severe slump in cattle prices and the difficulties encountered when the EEC market was suddenly switched off to our cattle in 1966. If we were outside an enlarged Community which included Britain our cattle and beef could at any time be faced with insuperable barriers and the difficulties we would encounter would make our 1966 troubles seem very small indeed. In the case of dairy products our position outside an enlarged Community would be even more insecure. I have noted that the opponents of EEC entry do not even try to show where we would sell our butter, our cheese, or our other dairy products if we were to remain outside an enlarged Community.
In the UK.
In 1969 and during much of 1970 we were selling butter and other dairy products on foreign markets at abysmally low prices. Indeed, in some cases it would have been nearly as economic to have poured the milk down the drain instead of processing it. Fortunately the market situation has changed and prices on world markets have improved greatly. They are, however, still well below the cost of production and considerable State support for milk continues to be necessary. If we were to remain outside an enlarged Community the outlook for our dairy industry would be a very precarious one. The cutting off of access to the United Kingdom market would make us completely dependent on foreign markets and there would be no assurance whatever of our obtaining a remunerative return. Indeed, it is more likely that the price returns would be entirely uneconomic as in recent years.
How in these circumstances would our agricultural industry have any kind of security in the years ahead? I am sure that our farmers realise that the prospect of real security for them lies in full membership of an enlarged Community. Anything short of full membership implies less favourable treatment than that which they would receive if we were a member because one of the basic ideas behind the EEC is that member states will enjoy a preferential trading system among themselves vis-á-vis non-member countries. In addition, without full membership we would have no say in formulating Community policy. Our agricultural production pattern, predominantly grass-phased livestock and livestock products, is of course ideally suited to reap the maximum advantage from membership of the EEC. Anything less than full participation in the Community's common agricultural policy would be a diminution of our farmers' prospects and opportunities.
Those who oppose Ireland's entry into the Community are in effect seeking to relegate Irish farmers to a position even less favourable than they have had to accept up to now. Some opponents of EEC membership have forecast a standstill or a gradual erosion of agricultural prices within the EEC. The Council of Ministers gave the lie to that contention in March when they announced a wide range of agricultural price increases. Allowing for the increases then announced the Community prices for cattle and milk are at levels that are about 60 per cent higher than the average prices being received by Irish farmers at present. In the case of sheep there is as yet no Common Market organisation but free access to the Community market would enhance considerably the price to Irish producers. Pig prices in the EEC in recent times have been well above average prices here and it is reasonable to assume that our pig producers will do fairly well in an enlarged Community. They will have to contend with somewhat higher feeding costs and this will be a challenge but of course it will represent and advantage to our barley growers.
In addition to their decisions in March on price increases for 1971-72 the Council of Ministers also took decisions of particular interest to us in the sphere of structural reform of agriculture. These decisions included provision for assistance to eligible farmers to modernise their farms, aids for farmers who of their own accord decide to leave the land, re-training and educational aid for those who have to leave agriculture, improvement of advisory and information services and special assistance for the setting up and running of producer groups and federation of such groups.
The member states will have considerable flexibility in administering the decisions of the Council. This is important. I should like to emphasise this and to stress the voluntary nature of the decisions which I have mentioned. While the detailed regulations implementing the decisions have yet to be worked out, it is clear that far from damaging and injuring small farmers in Ireland the decisions taken will operate to their long-term advantage and benefit.
In the entry negotiations in Brussels significant progress has been made on the agricultural front and the basic arrangements for the alignment of the applicant countries' prices with EEC levels have been put forward. Broadly, these provide for the achievement of price harmonisation in a number of equal steps over a five-year transitional period. Much of the detailed work is still in progress, but it is envisaged that during the transitional period trade between the Six and the new member states, and between the new member states themselves, would be based on a system of Community preference, together with a system of compensatory amounts which will represent the national price difference and will be gradually phased out over the five years. The overall objective would be to remove all barriers to trade within the Community over the five-year transitional period and to adopt the full Community trading regime against non-member countries.
In the negotiations we have raised a number of specific issues of particular interest to us. One is the preservation of our status in regard to animal health, particularly in so far as major epizootic diseases, such as foot and mouth diseases, are concerned. This matter is still being discussed in the negotiations. Another issue is the question of the removal of protection on a number of products, namely, in the horticultural sector. The problem here is that the Community are seeking to have all quantitative restrictions abolished at the outset by the applicant countries. We have raised the question of the Community financing export refunds and market intervention operations in the agriculture sector. This is an issue on which the Community side have not as yet made known its position. This is, of course, a very important matter for us.
As regards the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement, we have stressed to the Community the importance of ensuring that trade between this country and Britain is not disrupted in any way during the transitional period. We have, for example, a special interest in the phasing-out of the British deficiency payments which applied to our store cattle and lambs, as well as to some of our carcase beef and lamb.
As regards the EEC common fisheries policy, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and our official negotiators have used every opportunity to emphasise to the Community our very real concern in regard to the likely impact on our fisheries of the free access provision of the Community's fishery regulations. The common fisheries policy has many advantages for us in regard to structural and marketing improvements, but on the question of access to our exclusive fishery waters we made it clear to the EEC representatives in discussion and by memorandum the serious implications which the application of the access provision, unchanged, would have for this country. Needless to say, we propose to continue to press this point insistently in the negotiations.
EEC membership besides providing great opportunities will also brings its problems. Farmers will face some increases in costs. There will also be competition on the home market for some farm products. These problems are small as compared to the difficulties which we would have outside an enlarged Community. Inside the EEC I am confident that our farmers will acquit themselves well and will bring considerable advantage to themselves and to the country as a whole. Given the importance of agriculture in our economy, it is clear that the advantages which will be gained by agriculture from EEC membership will spread to other sections of the Community and will redound to the lasting benefit of all.
I want to refer to the point raised by Deputy Cosgrave concerning the dairy industry and the operations of the Dairy Disposal Company. The general position about this has been somewhat distorted, possibly unwittingly, by people who have not a full comprehension of the complexity of the problem. I would like to say that the purpose of the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Dairy Disposal Company is to provide as good a service as is possible for farmers in the areas where they operate, but it is not their purpose to withhold from properly organised producer groups the control of their own industry. At any time the Dairy Disposal Company and the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries would be very glad, given certain guarantees, to negotiate with the handing over of dairy disposal operations to properly organised farmers' co-operatives.
The Minister need not worry. It will not happen.
I would be optimistic on that point.
You are the super-optimist. You were not very optimistic in your tone. It was a kind of dirge— a kind of super-story you were telling.
I find it difficult to imagine what an optimistic dirge ought to sound like. I wanted to make a comment on that particular point because it was raised in the debate by Deputy Cosgrave. I deprecate the destructive attitude which has been adopted in some quarters.
I am only talking about the sound.
The approach of some people concerning the capacity of our farming community to face this challenge has not been good. I have not any doubt at all but that there are opportunities of great importance for us and that it is for us to grasp them.
That is more lively than what the Minister said earlier.
The debate in relation to the Irish application to join the Common Market is one which has to a great extent been conducted in a highly emotional and overheated atmosphere. That is something which could not be said about the contribution which we have just heard from the Minister. It seemed to me that the Minister had less than heart in what he was saying.
This is one of the most serious problems facing this country. We are about to conclude negotiations with the wealthiest, the most powerful economic, and potentially the most powerful political entity in the world—an entity already in existence and with which we shall have to deal whether we are a member or not. Today from both the Taoiseach and the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries we heard speeches that displayed no commitment or ideal. The speeches did not contain any appeal to our people who are in danger of making a decision which will be contrary to their own interests because they are not getting leadership from the Government who have an obligation to give it in relation to such an important matter.
To a substantial and significant extent, our economic and political future will be decided by the institutions of western Europe. The question which we must put to ourselves—because with the Members of this House will lie the obligation of answering this question—is: Do we seek for the Irish people a place within these decision-making bodies? If we realise the reality of the fact that decisions taken by western Europe institutions may have a greater effect than any decisions which we, in the exercise of sovereignty may take for ourselves, we must be forced to the conclusion that it is vital for us to participate in these decision-making institutions. These institutions exist and they will have a telling effect on our future, irrespective of whether we join the Community or not.
Like every other nationally-conscious people we have an inborn suspicion of foreigners. However, our economic prosperity, like that of any modern, progressive nation, depends to a growing extent upon trade with other peoples. We must overcome our tendency to distrust others if we are seriously to consider improving our trading and economic relations with them.
After ten years of negotiations the first effort on the part of the Government to educate our people in the facts of the Common Market was the recent publication of a booklet entitled The Common Market and How it Works. If ever a booklet was produced that contained so many half-truths—which amount to lies—and which contained stupid explanations— which are more likely to engender terror than confidence—I have never come across such a document and shall be interested to find if such has ever been produced.
In the first page of the booklet it is suggested that the Common Market is precisely equivalent to the economic and social conditions within this country and that there is the absolute competition in the EEC as exists between, for example, Corkmen and men from Kilkenny, between men from Dublin and men from Galway. It is suggested that there is the same freedom of movement of persons, capital and goods, the same law applying to all, the same standard regulations and so on. This is ill-conceived and it is difficult to understand the mentality of a Government that could have issued such a document. The whole tenor of the booklet is that the Common Market is an entirely free enterprise when, in fact, the agricultural sector within the EEC is a highly managed and a most sophisticated economy, as the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries in his contribution today has been able to establish. It is because it is a tightly controlled economy that there is a great opportunity for our farmers in the agricultural sector. Why were not these simple facts spelled out more explicitly in this first guide to the Common Market for the man-in-the-street?
When the booklet comes to consider how the Common Market works, there is a deliberate attempt to conceal one of the greatest weaknesses of the EEC as it is at present constituted, namely, the lack of parliamentary control and the absence of direct control by the people of Europe over the manner in which the EEC conducts its affairs. It purports to draw an analogy between national institutions and particularly a parliament elected by the people. In the next column, opposite the reference to parliaments elected by the people, we see a reference that: "The Common Market follows this general pattern". Again, on the same page of the booklet it is suggested that the Communities are confined to what is contained in the Treaty of Rome, although we know that they would not have developed as they have done if they did not use the power available to the Council of Ministers to suggest extensions of what was envisaged originally.
I accept that on reading another page of the booklet it is more apparent that the parliament is not a freely elected parliament but the whole suggestion is that any defects in the parliamentary system arise because there is not common agreement between member nations as to the mode of direct election. Why are the Government not prepared to disclose the whole truth about the EEC institutions, warts and all? If the Government do not do this quickly there is every possibility that our people will come to the wrong decision.
It will not be the wrong decision.
As a people, we tend to fear the unknown. All the Government have been doing is revealing very little of what is known or repeating ad nauseam and not revealing to our people the true alternatives which will enable them to reach a decision. We in Fine Gael have every confidence that our people will reach the right decision in their own interest to join the EEC but we consider it vital for this country that our people make the decision on the right information and not on a wrong or ignorant basis.
This is where we find ourselves in strong condemnation of the Government for the manner in which they have been remaining silent on vital issues and trying to camouflage defects which, when revealed by anti-Marketeers, cast considerable suspicion over the whole proposal to join the EEC.
Today, our colleague, Deputy FitzGerald, asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs for an explanation as to why comparative figures for economic growth, trade and real wages in Ireland are not contained in this booklet issued by his Department. In his reply the Minister said that the figures and tables included in the booklet were for the purpose of enabling economic development in the EEC to be compared with that in comparable economic entities. I suggest that the reason why the information is not contained in the booklet is that, if it were contained there, the people would see how the economy had advanced to a reasonable extent notwithstanding the fact that we were outside the EEC. How can it be argued that a country like Luxembourg is an economic entity comparable to the USA or Great Britain? Surely it would have been of interest that a booklet of this kind would indicate a comparison between the rise in real wages in Ireland and in Luxembourg, in Ireland and in Belgium and in Ireland and in the Netherlands. This booklet is a total condemnation of the information services of the Department of Foreign Affairs. It is an example of the appalling way in which the whole public education programme has been conducted by the Government during the past decade. If they cannot do a great deal better than that in the months immediately ahead, we may be in real difficulties because of the Government's mishandling of their very important obligation to educate our people in the true economic and political facts of the second half of the twentieth century.
There have been one or two developments in recent months which might help to dispel some misconceptions about the Community—misconceptions that were spread and that continue to be spread by anti-Marketeers. One of the most burning issues with some people and, at the same time, an irrelevant one, is the fear of loss of national identity within the EEC. It is regrettable that we have not pressed our negotiations with greater vigour and with greater determination. Fine Gael believe that the Government have been prepared to stand back for too long a time in order to see what the British position might be and on many issues we have allowed other applicants, Britain and Norway in particular, to make the case that we should have had the courage and the determination to make and, having made it, to publish that we had made it. If they did not succeed in doing anything else, the recent meetings between the President of France and the British Prime Minister indicated clearly that national loyalties are as strong within the EEC as they are outside it and that national identities and national selfishness can exist within the EEC as they can exist outside it. The whole atmosphere of the EEC negotiations, we are now led to believe, changed overnight, not because there was any mutual agreement between the existing members and the applicants but because one nation within, France, came to some kind of a friendly arrangement with one of the applicant nations, Britain, and this brought a new decisiveness to the negotiations because two national entities found new friendship and reached mutual understanding about the full extent of which the rest of us know nothing.
Today, and on previous occasions, we have been assured by the Taoiseach as we have been assured also by the Minister for Foreign Affairs that there would be full consultation between the EEC and all the applicant countries on matters of mutual interest. We are now led to believe by the international discussions, by the mass media and by the promptings that are given to the mass media by the people who pull political strings, that something vital happened in Paris, that something substantial happened there but yet we know nothing about this. It is not good enough if the whole idea is to be either blocked or accelerated because of private discussions between one or two existing members and one or two applicants. We are entitled to say and we should be asserting very vigorously in Brussels, Luxembourg and elsewhere that there must be full disclosure between EEC members and their applicants and that it does not augur very well for the future if some private arrangement can take place between Heads of States without disclosure to other people as to what they are up to.
One matter which is causing considerable concern is the fear that if the EEC is to bring increased wealth and is going to make employment available, that employment would be available to our people not in Ireland but elsewhere. As I mentioned earlier, the Government booklet helps to strengthen this fear by the suggestion that we can expect this absolute free movement of people. This suggestion is made in such a way as to fill people with fears that we are to have a large number of people from abroad coming here to establish themselves as capitalists or to obtain employment while Irish people will have to go in the opposite direction. There has been a most significant change in European outlook within the past couple of years in relation to the migration of workers. This is something which one would have thought the Government would have been at pains to point out instead of doing, as the Taoiseach did today, when he spent half his speech reciting the history of Ireland's application for the EEC since 1961. I would regard the Taoiseach's speech of today as being utterly deplorable. Certainly, it was not the speech of a Leader who was trying to encourage people to reach the decision that he believed they should reach; it was the speech of a man who was playing safe and who did not wish to say anything which any of the critics within his own Party or elsewhere might be able to take him up on because quite clearly there is little argument for political gain if a person spends half the time of a vital occasion like this in simply reciting the facts of history.
The main countries in Europe which have had great shortages of labour imported migrant workers from the depressed areas of Europe, from within and outside the EEC, but they have now discovered that the introduction of these workers can create very great problems and at the end of a decade of this trend these countries have decided that the future development should be sending industry to the workers and not bringing workers to already over-crowded urban areas of central Europe. This is where the prospects for our workers lie but this is not yet disclosed, not yet emphasised by the Government. I hope we shall hear from the Minister for Industry and Commerce some more definite indications as to what Europe is about in this connection and as to how the Government sees this developing in our own environment. It is time we began to quantify the benefits that can flow, time we got away from generalisations because the generalisations that have been advanced will not be sufficient to withstand the very deliberate campaign being conducted by some people to undermine the whole idea of the Common Market. Unless you quantify the benefits and clearly indicate to people that any disturbance they may suffer will only be temporary there is every prospect that our people who are insular by nature may make decisions which could be harmful to their best interests.
It is important that our people should have the true position regarding accession to membership revealed to them. Our Constitution provides that every international agreement to which the State becomes a party shall be laid before Dáil Éireann. Our treaty of accession to the Rome Treaty will be such an international agreement and will, therefore, require to be laid before this Assembly. Article 29 (5) of the Constitution provides that the State shall not be bound by any international agreement involving a charge upon public funds unless the terms of the agreement shall have been approved by Dáil Éireann. It is further provided in the same Article that no international agreement shall be part of the domestic law of this State save as may be determined.
The same article says that for the purpose of the exercise of any executive function of the State in or in connection with its external relations the Government may, to such extent and subject to such conditions as may be determined by law, avail of or adopt any organ, instrument or method of procedure used or adopted for the like purpose by the members of any group or league of nations with which the State is, or becomes associated for the purpose of international co-operation in matters of common concern.
This is all very complicated.
It is not; it is perfectly simple but this has not been drawn to the attention of the people in the way in which Fine Gael believe it should have been done. We believe that the effect of that Article of the Constitution is that Ireland can be a member of the EEC without a referendum, that the decision which will bind this country under our Constitution and international law to the EEC will lie with Dáil Éireann and it can even be made part of the domestic law of this country if it gets the approval of both Houses of the Oireachtas.
The Deputy will have to improve his legal education if he hopes to get away with that.
The leader of Fine Gael, Deputy Cosgrave, emphasised today Fine Gael's anxiety that our people be consulted about this vital decision but it is important that that consultation should take place before any legal commitment is made of the nature which clearly the Taoiseach and the Government have in mind and that is one that cannot then be subsequently revoked.
It is no concern of the EEC if any domestic difficulty arises in the course of any country because there is conflict between domestic law and the Treaty of Rome or any of the regulations or rules or orders made under it. That is a matter for the country itself to solve and that, in fact, will be the issue in any referendum here, if it takes place, after Dáil and Seanad Éireann have made their decision in relation to the Treaty of accession. It will be a matter then only of our domestic law unless——
What is the sanction?
The sanction might well be a general election.
I am not talking of that sanction but the sanction the EEC will impose.
The sanctions that can be imposed by the EEC are exactly the same sanctions that they can impose if you do not go in, the trade barrier, non-availability of capital, non-participation in decision making —all these disadvantages can clearly arise if the State were, subsequent to signing of an agreement, to attempt to renounce it. But we in Fine Gael are asking that our people be adequately informed, that they be given the full picture by the Government so that an adult decision can be made in the light of the economic and political realities of the second half of the 20th century.
If the Government do not do that we can well develop here a degree of frustration, of disenchantment and division which could seriously damage our readiness as a people to develop as we certainly can develop if we avail of the opportunities available to us. We complain that the Government have failed very substantially in stating Ireland's particular difficulties. We are distinct from any of the existing members of the EEC particularly in that we are an island in the western outskirts of Europe. There is no other country in Europe which would have the same problem in relation to dumping as we have had in the past or as we may well have in the future. We had reason to hope the Government had foreseen this problem because we were assured that the Government had made representations in the negotiations about it but no sooner did they make those representations than they apparently accepted what they called the clarification given by the commission and they abandoned the stand which until then they were prepared to make.
If Britain is able to hold up the growth of the EEC, is able to thwart its fellow applicant nations on non-European issues like Commonwealth sugar and New Zealand dairy produce it is time our negotiators took their courage in their hands and insisted that the European problem, the Irish problem, should also become a critical one, certainly in relation to Irish negotiations and we must ensure that the necessary protection is written into the treaty of accession so that we are not in a position in which our vulnerable and under-capitalised industries are injured overnight because of dumping by any other member of the EEC.
I am sorry to interrupt the Deputy but in order to adhere to the agreement——
I appreciate that. I am coming to it.
I am glad the Deputy made that last point.
We shall continue to express our dissatisfaction with the Government's negotiating efforts as long as there appears to be reason to do that. While we may say these things we still adhere to the principle of membership but we are seriously concerned about the way in which Ireland's position is being so seriously mishandled by the Government.
To meet the Whip's arrangement I shall endeavour to limit my contribution. In a sense one must limit one's contribution having heard the Taoiseach because with due regard to him he made a mediocre contribution. From reading the glossy handouts issued by the information section of the Department of Foreign Affairs and from listening to the constant repetitions of the Taoiseach I get the impression that the posture of negotiation might be compared to that very famous line of Louis Carroll: "What I say three times is true." The Taoiseach's assurances that the Government will endeavour, will do everything in its power and will constantly attempt—to use his phraseology—to bring back tangible, bankable guarantees—which, of course, is not his phraseology—do not impress the Labour Party.
The original speech of the Minister for Foreign Affairs pre-empted the possibility of some very hard, tough, critical negotiations between our Government and the Community taking place. The Minister has continued to reaffirm on behalf of the Government full acceptance of the Treaty of Rome with its political finality, economic objectives and the decisions taken to implement them. One might well ask why he bothers to get the plane to Brussels on Monday morning. One might even ask why the Commission on receipt of Irish negotiating memoranda bother to reply: "We note your position, we will take it into account."
Now that our application is a fact of life and a reality in terms of the Government negotiators being in Brussels it is the job of the Labour Party to ensure that the terms negotiated by the Government in Brussels will not prove incompatible with the political, social and economic interests of this country. We shall not have the slightest hesitation in opposing any terms of accession to the EEC which in our opinion do not take into account the kind of relationship which we might find necessary in the event of other nations in Europe obtaining formal accession to the EEC, particularly Britain, with whom our trading relationship is so intensive and of such magnitude.
The Labour Party have quite rightly adopted a position of extreme caution and reserve. They have shown a great deal of opposition to many aspects of the Government's application. This is a very necessary role for any Opposition to play. It is even more important that we should adopt this attitude when one bears in mind that the negotiations are being handled by a fifth-rate Cabinet consisting of very mediocre Ministers.
The Government must obtain elementary economic, social and polical safeguards in order to maintain employment. There are 40,000 workers engaged in the export industry and if their livelihoods are going to be put in jeopardy then the Labour Party will have no hesitation in opposing the terms of accession. There are another 160,000 engaged in our domestic manufacturing industry and if their livelihoods are jeopardised as a result of the outcome of negotiations—particularly if there are no provisions within the terms of accession to safeguard them—then I believe the Labour Party will be acting responsibly by opposing vehemently any such terms of accession brought back by the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
If transitional periods are inadequate, if the anti-dumping regulations prove ineffective and if the right of the Irish people to plan the development of their own economy is eroded, diluted, or circumscribed by an agreement made in Brussels then the Labour Party will continue to oppose the way the Government are approaching these negotiations. If we find any nuance of the continued independent sovereignty of this country being called into question we will oppose the White Paper put forward by the Government. Such cultural jargon as we heard from the Taoiseach this afternoon in relation to national sovereignty and national identity does not impress me. We want to find out what the Government are up to and we shall continue to act in a responsible and constructive manner.
I should like to try to pinpoint what I regard as elementary pre-conditions which the Government have failed to emphasise in the current negotiations and in any form of relationship which may evolve with the Community. Any transitional period should ensure that entry would proceed at such a pace over such a period of time and in such manner that the major national objective will not be affected. Incidentally, this major national objective has been completely forgotten now that we have buried the Third Programme for Economic Expansion. Even the Minister for Finance is now afraid to trot it out. I do not suppose it matters a whole lot in terms of Fianna Fáil strategy. Certainly the national objective of full employment and increased industrial employment will be adversely affected unless the transitional period and the terms are satisfactory. If they do not prove to be satisfactory then the Minister and his negotiators will deserve a hammering.
There is an analogy. We had the Taoiseach's reference today to the sugar industry. We had, at least, one specific comment. He said that he was satisfied there were no special problems for us in the sugar agreement. We certainly cannot afford to have the same kind of agreement or the same kind of approach which operates in the case of the British. Is the Taoiseach really satisfied that there are no problems? What about acreage? Britain is limited to 900,000 tons. Could not our farmers be critically affected by a limitation of acreage? I do not want to see this country becoming another Barbados or another Mauritius. One commentator in the Observer had pungent criticism to make of the sugar agreement and its effect on Barbados, Mauritius and so on. He accused Britain of selling out these countries' livelihood. There is need for us to exercise great care.
The principal danger is that of not having sufficient safeguards in relation to dumping. Industry here is peculiarly sensitive to dumping. Let us not be under any illusions about the effectiveness of protective measures. These are still very much in question. Information with regard to dumping is very scant. There is need for clarification. We will have to insist on our right to provide special industrial development incentives for industry west of the Shannon. There was no mention in the Taoiseach's speech of the Shannon Free Airport Development Company. I hope there will be no difficulty about the vital role of that company in our economy.
With regard to our fisheries and our land, the Taoiseach said there was a problem. If we enter the Community the 1965 Land Act will have to be amended. We should not allow even land which has been left abandoned or uncultivated for two years to fall into the hands of foreign entrepreneurs. All land should be retained for the restructuring of Irish agriculture.
The Taoiseach could hold out no hope in relation to the fishing industry. The Government have admitted that common access would present grave difficulties where Irish fishermen are concerned. It is time we stopped the nonsense about negotiations on our fishing industry. In any assessment of the prospects for Irish fisheries, for anything up to 1,000 boats involving over 1,800 full-time fishermen and some 3,500 part-time fishermen, there is very little future for them in the EEC. These are the men who the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Dr. Hillery, so snidely says have no stake in Ireland. I shall be coming to that later on.
The Government's approach to the negotiations deserves criticism. When the negotiations among the Six took place in 1957 and when the EEC was set up, the Italians could demand and obtain the following protocol, which says:
...takes note of the fact that the Italian Government is occupied in the implementation of a ten-year programme of economic expansion aimed at correcting the disequilibria in the structure of the Italian economy, in particular by the equipment of the less developed areas in the South of Italy and the islands and by the creation of new opportunities of employment with a view to eliminating unemployment.
It goes on to say:
...and are of the opinion that the institutions of the Community in the application of this Treaty shall take into account the burden to be borne by the Italian economy during the coming years and the desirability of avoiding dangerous tensions in particular in the balance of payments or in the level of employment such as might jeopardise the application of this Treaty in Italy.
When the Italian negotiators could do it in 1957 in a very difficult economic situation, and when the Luxembourg negotiators were able to do it, why can we not obtain advantages in respect of fisheries and the other major sensitive sectors of the Irish economy liable to be adversely affected by EEC membership? Ireland should be able to negotiate comparable safeguards and assurances if we are worth our salt, but I doubt very much if the Minister for Foreign Affairs intends to adopt that approach.
I want to place on record my very strong resentment of one comment made by the Minister for Foreign Affairs when he adopted his more notorious RDS stance in a recent statement. I love the way Fianna Fáil can always adopt the black or white approach: you are either for them or against them; there is a great simplicity in the Fianna Fáil Party in their attempts at policy over the years. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Dr. Hillery, said that people like myself who have reservations, and make those reservations sincerely and constructively, on EEC membership, have no stake in this country. I want to assure him and the Minister for Finance that the small fishermen of this country, the fishermen of Dún Laoghaire whom I have the honour to represent, the small farmers, the workers in the motor assembly industry, the workers in the textile industry, have a future that is as big and as valuable as the future of the Fianna Fáil Party itself. They have a great deal more to contribute than the Johnny-come-latelys, the new industrial rich who have come into this country and taken over many of our industries and distributive outlets.
I am greatly perturbed that the negotiations seem to be the exclusive preserve of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and a few other Ministers who know anything about the EEC and the senior civil servants who have a difficult and complex job on hand and who are not aided by the internecine warfare going on between the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Finance, Deputy George Colley, as to who will get the kudos from the flights to Brussels and the television comments on return. But then the Minister for Foreign Affairs is so inarticulate that it does not matter a whole lot; indeed, it is quite impossible to understand what exactly he is up to.
The Government should immediately establish the National Economic Council promised so often by the Taoiseach. The terms of reference of this council should be agreed as quickly as possible; there should be consultations between the council, the trade unions, the employers' organisations, the other major trading bodies and academic interests, so that they would be kept informed on negotiations. It is a fat lot of use coming back to us in four or five months time and then having a referendum involving a glib indication from the Taoiseach that you are either for it or against it, that either you are European or you are not, that either you are confirmed or you are not a Christian. This is a divisive approach, a purely party political strategy on the part of the Taoiseach. He would love to have a general election on such an issue so that the more pressing internal problems of the Government would be submerged.
There are many Deputies who would speak here tonight were it not for the limitation on time. Therefore we should not confine ourselves to a debate on one day a month. There should be set up an all-party committee on the whole question of the EEC negotiations. I see nothing wrong with having such discussions, with party policies still being preserved intact. Such a committee could perform a valuable service and it would mean that the negotiations would be more effective. I am putting forward this suggestion because I am more than conscious that Ireland is a country on which EEC membership will have a most critical effect. One must bear in mind that in 1969 the GNP per head in this country was $1,160 as against an average for the Ten of $2,190. This is the massive jump we are being asked to take and I do not think we should be asked to take it in accordance with the Taoiseach's approach: "If I say everything is all right three times, then it is true, and that is all there is to it."
I should like at the outset to refer to the concluding remarks of Deputy Desmond when he made a side swipe at my colleague, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and alleged that his trips to Brussels were for the purpose of trying to arrange a weekly excursion. To be criticised, on the one hand, for not being active enough in pursuing negotiations and, on the other, for too much activity in endeavouring to pursue the negotiations to the fullest possible extent is rather unfair to a man who has been fully occupied in looking after the interests of this country in the negotiations in recent times.
The Deputy referred to his own constituency and to the fishermen in the Dún Laoghaire district, the workers in the motor assembly industry and in the textile industry. He said that they were more important to him than the Johnny-come-latelys or the foreigners who have set up industries here. I want to state categorically that I want to see all industrial employment maintained. It is no advantage to us in our efforts to expand our industrial arm to have Deputies in this House criticising the development of new industry and saying that specific industries are more important from an employment point of view than others. It is easy for a Deputy to stand up in this House and to attack supermarket proprietors and give their names. A Deputy will not lose votes as a result of such an attack. It is not right for any Deputy to criticise industrialists whom we welcomed to this country and who have in their own way contributed to the expansion of our exports and to the narrowing of the trade balance.
Since we made our application for entry into the EEC I have been listening to people expressing their fears with regard to the survival of certain industries. Deputy Desmond mentioned the motor assembly industry. This is one of the industries for which a special case is being made by our negotiator, Dr. Hillery, and his team in relation to entry into the EEC. There are a number of other traditional industries about which there has been worry and every effort is being made to take whatever action is possible to protect them during the transitional period. During their own transitional periods the present member states of the EEC had the right to invoke Article 226 of the Rome Treaty to deal with difficulties encountered by sensitive industries. This Article authorised the commission, at the request of the member state concerned, to determine by emergency procedure and without delay the protective measures deemed necessary to rectify regional or sectoral difficulties. Further safeguard measures were provided by Article 115 which relates to the difficulties arising from a deflection of trade. Article 26 relates to difficulties arising out of the alignment of a country's customs duties with the common customs tariff.
In the course of the negotiations we have accepted community proposals concerning Articles 226 and 115. We have also indicated that we assume that a provision on the lines of Article 26 will also apply to the new member states during their transitional period. In fact, those Articles only applied during the course of the transitional period and had ceased to operate, but now we have indicated to the commission that we assume that a provision on the lines of Article 26 will apply to us and we have reached agreement in connection with Articles 226 and 115. Deputies will, of course, appreciate that the arrangements for the gradual elimination of protection over the transitional period will constitute, in themselves, an important safeguard.
We have sought special treatment for the motor assembly industry, in effect the retention of the special import channelling arrangements for the industry in their essentials. Our aim is to ensure the maintenance of the motor assembly industry here for as long as possible.
The steel industry will be carrying through a major reorganisation programme at a time when it will be facing increased competition. We have, therefore, submitted to the Community that we wish to retain during the transitional period our control over the export of iron and scrap and to continue during this period the industry's existing conditions of access to non-community sources for material. At present Irish Steel Holdings are in a position to import, duty free, pig iron from Eastern European countries and we are hoping that we will be able to arrange for the continuance of this situation during the transitional period.
Any chance of selling the Government as scrap?
I do not think so. You still have a monopoly on the scrap business on the other side.
Nobody would give anything for them.
There has been a considerable amount of worry about the possibility of dumping following our entry. We have been at pains to bring home to the Community side, in the course of the negotiations, the particular vulnerability of Irish industry to dumping. Detailed proposals submitted by us relating to the transitional period and to dumping from the Community as well as from third countries are at present under consideration by the Community. Deputy Desmond expressed the fear that any arrangements that we can make will not be adequate in this regard. He went out of his way to criticise the arrangements we have made and the case the team are making for the protection of jute. He scoffed at an imaginary situation and suggested that our negotiators were seeking special protection for the jute industry when they were unaware of the closure in Ciara and that the commission had to tell them about this situation.
I want to make it quite clear that this is not so. On the other hand, in its own way, it gives the lie to Deputy Desmond's claim that his opposition here and that of his party is in any way constructive or sincere. He criticises the negotiators for not fighting for certain protections and at the same time, when the arrangements have been made for protection, he criticises the negotiators for seeking that protection.
I have every confidence that we shall secure the Community's agreement to the implementation of arrangements which will provide adequate protection for our industries against dumping from every source during the transitional period. As a matter of fact, as a result of discussions with the Community, we are satisfied that safeguards will be available after the end of the transitional period both in regard to dumping from third countries and in regard to dumping practices within the Community.
In relation to the question of new industries membership of the Community should, in fact, improve considerably the attractions of this country as a location for new industry. I am informed by the Industrial Development Authority that the promoters of some rather important projects at present under consideration are deferring final decisions on their plans until they know the outcome of our application for membership. In some cases the projects will go ahead only if our application is successful and there are other cases in which the projects which are planned will be expanded into much larger units if our application is successful. It is quite natural that this should be so. In relation to a visit I made to the US towards the latter part of last year——
You came back empty-handed.
No, you are mixing up your Ministers.
There was a different crisis.
There was no crisis. I was out there in October. The potential industrialists I met when I was there were extremely interested in the possibility of our successfully negotiating entry into the EEC. Certainly the report I have now from the IDA confirms me in the full belief that successful negotiation of our application for entry into the EEC will be followed by sizeable development of our industrial arm.
Deputy Desmond referred to the fears he had for the Shannon industrial estate in relation to our application for entry into the EEC and the possibility of our being able to maintain the present industrial grants system. Our industrial grants are in our view fully compatible with the provisions of the Rome Treaty. We are at present pursuing in the negotiations the question of retaining our export tax reliefs including, of course, those applicable at Shannon for their full statutory life, that is, up to the year 1990.
We saw last year the emergence of the new and extended Industrial Development Authority which, in fact, combined in one organisation, An Foras Tionscal and the former authority. The new body is charged with the national responsibility for the furtherance of industrial development. It has now been endowed with wider powers and functions, embracing new industry grants, industrial modernisation, training research and development in preparation for entry. The authority may also guarantee and subsidise borrowing for industrial development as well as providing industrial estates. There are also advance factories, a number of which were announced last week by the IDA. In addition, they have been empowered to provide industrial housing. In fact, the capital provision for the IDA in the current year is £23 million which, in fact, is £4½ million greater than it was last year.
The recent announcement by the IDA in relation to the advance factory programme, the scheme of roughly 33 advance factories all over the country, is tied in with the industrial development of this country running hand in hand with the creation, as we see it, of off-farm employment. We have the movement from the land and it is necessary for us to be able to provide industries all over the country in order to be able to provide the type of industrial employment for the rural people reasonably adjacent to their homes, recently adjacent to the holdings which we hope they will continue to occupy.
The reorganisation of the IDA during the past year included the establishment of the new regional organisation which will give top priority to regional planning. As the House knows we have eight new regional offices which commenced operation in January of this year. The advance factory announcement is the initial result of the preliminary investigations they have carried out in an effort to speedily develop the industrial arm and stretch it all over the country.
Fears have been expressed regarding our existing industries and reference is often made to the older industries with the suggestion that they may run into difficulties following entry into the EEC. Let me say that the scope for manufacturers who wish to take advantage of the export opportunities in the Common Market can be illustrated by the fact that our exports of manufactured goods, excluding food and drink, to the existing EEC countries increased from £600,000 in 1958 to an overall figure of £27 million last year. In fact, manufactured goods are now and have been for several years the largest category of Irish exports to the Community.
Accession to an enlarged EEC will introduce Ireland to a market of 270,000,000 people with a high standard of living and an increasing population. Membership of such a large and prosperous trading bloc holds out clear advantages for Irish exporters, particularly in view of the fact that our recent gains in the market show that our Irish industrialists, our Irish exporters, have the capacity to sell there competitively. When one sees the removal of the present duties against Irish goods it must be obvious that this will give exporters more room for manoeuvre as regards prices, promotional expenditure, and so on.
However, the EEC, as such, is not a high tariff area and duty free entry will not of itself generate sales. It must be emphasised that Community membership offers a potential which cannot be realised without a great deal of hard work and a great deal of efficient planning. Córas Tráchtála, the Irish export board, has already introduced a number of measures to strengthen its organisation and to increase its capacity to assist exporters in the context of European economic integration. It has created a senior post at its head office to co-ordinate the building-up of information sources on the EEC. At present it is engaged on a series of on-the-spot market investigations in member countries. This activity is aimed mainly at assembling maximum information on EEC regulations as they affect industry and on various marketing patterns in the different member states. Already CTT has two offices in the Community, one in Paris and one in Düsseldorf and it is planned to open a third in Brussels during the course of the present year.
I should not conclude, I think, without stressing the fact that success in attracting new export oriented industries has broadened our industrial basis to such an extent that it is difficult to make any meaningful comparison between our present industry and industry as it was in 1961, when the CIO began its industrial survey to indicate the lines which should be followed in preparing Irish industry for overall freer trade conditions. The value of our exports of manufactured goods, other than food and drink, to all countries increased from almost £18 million in 1958 to almost £236 million last year. While new export oriented industries contributed very substantially to this figure, there were also great improvements leading to an increase in exports by firms that had originally been established to cater primarily for the home market. These changes have been very much encouraged by the State. This has involved giving considerable financial assistance by way of adaptation and re-equipment grants, an extension of the range of aids and services provided by some State agencies like CTT and IIRS, and the provision of new services such as industrial training by AnCO. I should also mention the greatly expanded effort of the Irish Management Institute to develop the overall management standards.
Although it is clear that great progress has been made by the older established sector of industry to adapt to free trade conditions it is equally clear—and I must sound this note of warning—that much remains to be done. Marketing in particular requires much greater attention from very many of our firms. It is undeniable that Irish industry is now and has been for some time more export conscious and more outward looking as such. Nevertheless, many of those involved at all levels in Irish industry do not yet seem to have fully grasped the fact that in free trade conditions firms will not survive on the basis of selling what they can but of making what they can sell. They are selling what they can make but they should place more emphasis on making what they can sell. Being good at making a certain type of goods will not of itself guarantee the future of a business. It must be recognised that with free trade more than ever before success, if not survival, will depend on the ability not just to produce the right goods but to have them at the right price, at the right place, at the right time.
This is one of the messages, I suggest, in the reports already published by the Committee on Industrial Progress not only for those sectors of industry on which it has published reports but also for industry in general. So far the COIP has reported on five sectors of industry and has produced reports on women's outerwear clothing, fruit and vegetable processing, hosiery, the metal trade, paper and paper products, printing and publishing and, in fact, reports on five further sectors are expected to be available in the course of the next few months.
However, the main effort must come from industry itself, that is to say, from individual firms and groups of firms acting collectively. This is something which has been said before and which has been repeated very often, but I feel I should continue to reiterate it. In doing so I want also to stress that for those who have been in any way dilatory in their preparations the time left is now very short indeed. Apart from those people, I am fully satisfied about the future and the possibility of further industrial expansion. We will have problems, but the overall benefits to be derived from industrial expansion rest, as I see it, on our successful negotiations for entry into the EEC.
I will confine myself more or less to fisheries and the EEC. In June last year during the course of the EEC debate the Fine Gael and Labour spokesmen spoke about the grave implications for Irish fishermen if free access were incorporated in the Common Market fishery policy. It must be remembered that there was no Common Market fishery policy at that time. I am quite sure that the Irish Government or the Irish Civil Service put the case for Ireland at that time with regard to what free access would mean and the detrimental effect it would have on our fishing industry.
The Norwegians made their case on June 20th and, if we had helped them at that time, the Common Market countries might have adopted a more lenient attitude to free access. The policy which the Common Market countries have now adopted could not be any worse as far as Ireland is concerned. We must compliment the Norwegians on the way they went about their business. On June 20th they submitted a memorandum to the EEC countries. In that memorandum they pointed out the pitfalls as far as they were concerned. Yet it is sad to state that no voice was raised in defence of the 5,000 people in Ireland involved either directly or indirectly in fishing. The fishermen should be told why the Government allowed those three months to go by without one voice being raised in protest.
I asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs what proposals he had submitted to the EEC as far as our fishermen were concerned and the answer I received was that it was confidential, that it would be detrimental to tell us. Article 2 of the Common Market policy for fisheries states that under certain specific conditions concerning the flag or the registration of their ships Community fishermen must have equal access to fishing grounds and to their exploitation in maritime waters, coming under the sovereignty or jurisdiction of member states and that an exception to this rule may be temporarily permitted for certain types of fishing for the benefit of local populations whose employment is closely dependent on inshore fishing. Further on it refers to a three-mile limit. In 1964 the United Nations drew up a charter involving a 12-mile limit and, as Deputy Keating so ably pointed out, the continental shelf lies on that side of the Atlantic. Are we now going to put all our future fishery prospects in jeopardy?
It is worth noting the numbers of trawlers which different countries in the Common Market have. In Ireland we have a total of 19 vessels of over 75 tons. We have 51 vessels of an average of 51 to 75 tons and 140 vessels from 26 to 50 tons and under 26 tons we have 645, making a total of 855 fishing trawlers altogether. It must be remembered that only 19 of these are over 75 tons. Belgium has 354 trawlers and an average tonnage of 84. Germany has 1,911 trawlers and an average of 95 tons. The Netherlands have 1,403 trawlers and their average is 68.9 tons. France has over 13,764 trawlers, and their average for vessels of from 25 to 75 tons is 21 tons. You can take it that they have at least 2,500 vessels of over 75 tons. Where are our 19 vessels of over 75 tons going to go in comparison with those built-up fleets, those State-owned and company-owned ships? We just will not have a chance and the Irish fisherman knows this.
That is why the fishermen should get an apology from the Minister for Foreign Affairs. The man had the cheek to go on radio and television and say with a wave of his hand "We have to look at the overall picture". Did he think for a moment of the anguish and anxiety caused in the 3,500 homes up and down the west coast, in Dún Laoghaire and Howth, in Arklow, Dunmore, Castletownbere, Dingle, Galway, Killybegs and Burtonport? Look at the anguish which must have been caused in those homes when they realised their livelihood was now at stake, yet the Minister came along and blandly stated "We have to take the overall picture into account". Somebody must suffer and it must be the fishermen.
It is disgraceful that any Minister of this State should have the nerve to go on television and with a wag of his tongue dispense with the fishermen. It is entirely wrong that any Minister should have the power to dismiss the fishing fleet with a few glib words without having a mandate from the people to do so in the first place. The Minister came to Killorglin to open a new factory, which we were glad to get, and he stated quite openly that Ireland was going into the Common Market on 1st January, 1973. In making that statement he virtually dispensed with all the bargaining power he had as far as fisheries are concerned, or as far as the motor industry is concerned or any other industry that is in trouble. He should not have shown his hand at that stage by saying that we are going in on a certain date. He was more or less saying that we were going in at any cost and in my opinion the cost is much too great as far as certain people are concerned.
Arising from his speech in Killorglin I tabled a question to the Minister today and I received a note from the Ceann Comhairle telling me that, as this debate was coming up, the question could not be allowed. I wonder is this debate going to be used to stifle any questions arising in regard to EEC problems from month to month. Are we going to be told by the Ceann Comhairle——
The rulings of the Ceann Comhairle may not be questioned.
But the point bothering me is this: is the debate going to be used to stifle questions of public importance as far as the EEC is concerned? Are we going to be told that we can discuss them at the next monthly EEC debate, because if so this debate will not serve any purpose? My questions were fair and honest. They were in regard to statements made by Ministers and I think I should have been allowed question the Minister to build up the case I am making.
Hear, hear. To get the facts.
I wanted the answers for statistical purposes and I was denied the opportunity of getting them. This debate was used as an excuse and I take grave exception to this. If that is the type of treatment that is going to be given to the Opposition as far as the EEC——
The Chair must point out to the Deputy that there is a way in which the Deputy can raise these matters. The Deputy may not raise them in this fashion.
I bow to your ruling, Sir, but I have made my point anyway. The Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries spoke here today. He is the Minister who is specifically concerned with the fishing industry and in about three sentences he said that we were still fighting the case of the fishermen, that we are still pressing as hard as we can. That was the sum total of the interest he took in the fishermen. It is only right that the fishermen should adopt—and they cannot be blamed by anybody in this House if they do adopt —a more militant attitude in the near future. I am not advocating this, but unless the Government pull up their socks and show the fishermen that they are interested in their welfare then you will have rotten apples and so forth being thrown outside Leinster House. It will come to that.
These people have put their savings into their boats. Their fathers and grandfathers were fishermen. Some of them have been fishing since they were 12 years of age. Some of the new skippers may have attended secondary school or technical schools in order to get their certificates. If they are told that their livelihood is gone they cannot be expected to take that news lying down. The Minister, and especially Deputy Hillery, should protest vehemently about this matter and should show that Ireland will not enter the EEC blindfolded if it would deprive the homes of their traditional living.
The Fine Gael Party sent a delegation to Brussels in February. I was on that delegation. My opinion, looking back on it now, is that the whole exercise was a high-powered effort in brain-washing. I was there to find out more about the fisheries. To my dismay I was told that the three civil servants who drew up the fishery policy were unavailable. Deputy Ryan made a fuss and we were told that we would have a working lunch with Dr. Mansholt and that I could put questions on fishery matters to him. I did that, and I found that Dr. Mansholt is a top-class politician.
He is one of the commissioners.
He is as good as the men in this House.
He is a socialist.
Dr. Mansholt did not give a definite answer to any question. The commissioner of the Common Market countries was afraid to give detailed information at that stage. Subsequently I looked for information from our representatives and this evening I got some information. I got a copy of the fishery regulations, but I have not yet got a reply to the memorandum I submitted to Dr. Mansholt.
In the memorandum I submitted I expressed interest in the question of conservation. It is well known that there is not now even a sardine off certain parts of the French coast. The whole fishing beds have been swept away. That is bound to happen with the new type of suction trawler that the EEC countries have. Russia has these trawlers on the Baltic. There are about 8,688 trawlers over 75 tons in the EEC countries and they have the modern gear such as suction, and even the plankton and the sand-eels are swept up by it. Our traditional fishing beds would be destroyed by the use of such trawlers in our fishing beds.
The Government have failed miserably to do anything about conservation. A conservation policy should be drawn up immediately and funds allocated for this purpose. It would seem that the Government do not care about the fishermen. They do not appear to be any more worried than Dr. Mansholt was in February. It would be bad for this country if that mentality crept in. The fishermen will suffer now. Who will be next?
I was glad to see that the farming organisations and the civil servants' organisations have recently supported the fishermen. I wish there was more support for them. There are just one or two questions I wish to ask before I finish. How many civil servants have we at present in Brussels negotiating for us? How many are there on a wholetime basis? Are they flying to and from Ireland every week? Have we made an effort to acquire offices in Brussels? Other countries looking for membership have acquired offices. If we fail to do so we are not being serious about the whole exercise.
The Government should make a more concerted effort on behalf of the fishermen. It is wrong for a Minister to appear on television and to say on radio that the fishing industry is doomed. The Minister has no mandate to say so and it was wrong of him to do so. The Minister should not have caused so much anxiety and anguish in the households along the western sea-board. There are few enough people living there at present. The fishermen go out in the trawlers at 5 a.m. and return about 8 p.m. We have only 17 or 19 trawlers of over 75 tons. If we are to compete with the EEC countries the 12-mile limit must be retained. We cannot allow large numbers of foreign trawlers onto our fishing beds. This would damage traditional fishing beds not alone for Ireland but for Europe. That has happened already in the Baltic and if it happens off the Atlantic shelf it will be a bad day for Ireland. I hope the Minister will retreat from the stance he has taken up and say that we will fight for the rights of the fishermen and for their protection. If the Minister adopts this attitude it will be of great benefit to the country.
I am spokesman on fisheries for my party. When this debate was scheduled I asked to be allowed to make a few comments on this aspect of our entry into the EEC. I welcome the change in thinking in the Fine Gael Party on the EEC in general and particularly on this aspect of our application. The previous speaker expressed doubts about the fishermen's position. He put forward his doubts very forcibly at every opportunity in this House. We find that other Fine Gael members are listening to, and are being influenced by him. They are questioning our entry into the EEC not only in regard to fisheries but on other aspects also.
My major criticisms of the Government's policy regarding the Common Market come under three headings. First, the benefits to Ireland as a result of entry have been grossly overstated. In all the statements that have been made and in the White Papers that have been issued it is stated that agriculture will be the greatest beneficiary. The people in this industry have been led to believe that there is a bonanza waiting for them should we enter the Community. However, a closer reading of the agricultural policy of the EEC reveals that this is not entirely true.
When the farmers of Belgium found it necessary to invade the EEC building and to drive cattle into a meeting in order to make their case heard about loss of earnings, Irish farmers began to have their first serious doubts about the benefits that may accrue to them. Undoubtedly there are benefits as regards prices and they can be quantified reasonably well. To the Irish housewife they may not be too welcome but to the farming community they are of definite benefit. Irish farmers generally were led to believe that the benefits would be considerable but on closer scrutiny it appears that the benefits will accrue to the larger units in agriculture. As a result of entry the units in agriculture will have to be enlarged in order to reap the full benefits.
The place of the small farmer in Ireland will be jeopardised considerably by entry into the Community. Dr. Mansholt has indicated on more than one occasion that the larger the unit the more economic it will be and the greater will be the benefit. He has put forward a plan to encourage small farmers to give up their land and to retire on pensions and this indicates the preoccupation of EEC countries to enlarge agricultural units.
My second criticism is the adverse effects for us of entry into the Community. I have mentioned some of these in regard to agriculture and later I shall deal with the effects on our fishing industry, as this is my main area of interest in this debate.
My third major criticism is that no consideration has been given to possible alternatives. In any of the White Papers or in the documentation that have been issued, alternative considerations have not been spelled out, either by way of associate membership or the possibilities of a treaty or some other arrangement with the EEC countries. As I stated in a previous debate on this matter, other European countries such as Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, Spain and Portugal have found it more advantageous not to seek entry. A treaty has been signed between Austria and the EEC and in this regard Ireland should have considered herself closer to the Austrian position than to the other countries of the Community.
The previous speaker has spoken about the fishing industry and this sector is my particular concern. I would remind the House of the debate that took place on the fishing industry in November, 1970, when the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries introduced the Estimate which covers fisheries. At column 2288, Volume 249 of the Official Report for 26th November, 1970, the Parliamentary Secretary stated:
The policy of free access to fishery waters is a matter of some considerable concern to us. Its adoption here would cause severe hardship for the inshore fishermen who depend almost entirely on landings from our own exclusive fishery waters. In addition as a result of overfishing there could be very adverse effects on fish stocks in those waters.
This question of common access to fishery waters is being strongly pursued in the entry negotiations. It was raised by the Irish delegation at the ministerial meeting between Ireland and the European Communities in Brussels on 21st September and the Community delegation agreed to take careful note of the Irish views.
In the came column the Pariamentary Secretary stated:
Without attempting to minimise in any way the problem arising in regard to access to fishery waters in an enlarged Community, I should like to point out that this is only one aspect of the EEC common fisheries policy. The common policy, as I have said, also provides for detailed organisation of the fish market and the price support which this will involve and the organisational arrangements proposed, especially the development of producer organisations and the functions proposed for them, should be of considerable benefit to our fishermen and enable them to make the most of the market opportunities available in an enlarged Community.
Although the Parliamentary Secretary had been alerted at the time to the dangers involved for our fishermen in regard to our entry into the EEC he was still talking about what his Department were doing in the negotiations. However, the situation was deteriorating rapidly. In June, 1970, the EEC had decided to formulate a fisheries policy in addition to their agricultural policy. At this stage Ireland should have made her case and have been alert to the dangers for our fishing industry. Our fishing industry had been expanding at a rate that was far greater than the rate of expansion of any other industry in the country. In 1967, the total value of fish landings amounted to slightly more than £2 million; two years later the figure had increased to £3 million and it was expected that the figure for 1974 would be about £7 million. An industry of such magnitude deserved to be protected by our negotiators.
The position with regard to the EEC countries in June last year was that the Six had a deficit of 500,000 tons on their fish imports while the four applicant countries had a surplus of 700,000 tons. It was with this in mind that the EEC countries realised the danger in so far as that if negotiations were brought to a speedy conclusion, the applicant countries, if they were to be included in the negotiations, could make demands on the original Six countries for better terms. These negotiations were rushed so as to exclude from them the British, the Norwegians and the Irish, all of whom were engaged to a large extent in fishing. The result was that the policy was finalised in October and put into effect on 1st February. This decision has resulted in the opening to fishermen of all the waters of the applicant countries as well as of the member countries. There are some few exceptions but these would be wiped away in a period of five years from the date of accession to membership. Any regulations imposed by the rules of entry would have to be wiped away in that period. In the document concerning the common structure policy of the fisheries policy that was circulated recently by the Department of Foreign Affairs there are indicated the dangers inherent for fishermen should we become a member of the Community. This document states that access to the fishery waters of each member country by the other member countries, subject to exceptions, would be determined by the Council on proposals by the Commission. It is stated that this would prevail for all countries: that exceptions might be permitted for certain types of fishing in zones where local coastal populations are mainly dependent on inshore fishing but that such exceptions would be limited to fishery waters within a three-mile zone seaward from the base line but that this would be limited to a period of five years.
The fishermen of Ireland and also those of England and Norway have reacted very strongly to this policy. Successive "Seven Days" programmes on RTE have shown us what are these reactions. The fishing industry in Britain was dealt with exclusively in one programme and their fishermen—with some justification—indicated their hostility to the policy. On a television programme broadcast a week ago when Irish fishermen were given an opportunity of putting forward their views their reaction was similar to that of the British fishermen. They indicated that should we join the EEC and adopt this fisheries policy, their reaction would be very strong and that they might be forced to take measures that would even include violence towards the fishermen of other member countries should these fishermen come within the existing limits.
The Minister's reaction to that programme is to be deplored. He indicated that very little could be done for fishing and said that the benefits that would accrue to other sectors would have to be weighed against the losses in the fishing industry. It is not good enough to say that if we join we could change this policy. With the small representation that we would have I do not think we would be able to change the policy because the existing members have indicated that decisions made before the accession of any of the applicant countries would not be changed. The Articles of the Treaty of Rome and any decisions made on them are not negotiable. In this respect the fishermen of the applicant countries have grounds for the fears they have expressed. So far as we on this side of the House know our negotiators have not been putting forward our policy on behalf of the fishermen in a manner that is sufficiently strong. This, too, must be deplored. The Norwegians have laid down conditions which they wish to have implemented should they join. Recently they have had a change of government and the new government have pledged themselves not to give way on these conditions. Only today the British made a political decision on fisheries. They want to have the control of fishery waters limited to six miles and a condition that any foreign boat fishing inside that limit must fish from a British port and make its landings in that port. So far as we can judge from documentation nothing on those lines has been put forward by this country but it is about time it was done. It is not good enough to let the Norwegians and the British make the running for us. We must make our position clear on behalf of our fishermen. Perhaps as a result of this debate something will be done by the Government in this respect.
I would like to have touched on some other areas that would be under pressure in EEC conditions; for instance, the car assembly industry and the spinning and weaving industry, but since we have been asked to be somewhat more brief than was originally intended. I shall conclude with those few remarks. I am particularly concerned about the fishing industry and wanted to express that concern to the Taoiseach and the Minister for Foreign Affairs but because of the shortness of the debate I cannot mention those other areas where I think there will be——
The Deputy is still within his time if he wishes to continue.
In that case I should like to mention the spinning and weaving industry. In 1961 when entry to the EEC was first mooted by the Government they set up a committee known as the Committee on Industrial Organisation charged with the responsibility of looking at the various sectors of industry which might receive most severe competition. That body indicated that the spinning and weaving sectors would be greatly affected if certain changes were to take place. Since then very little, if anything, has been done to bring these industries up to the level of efficiency that would be required to make them viable in the enlarged Community. Already, many of them are on short time as a result of competition, particularly from Britain, with the lowering of tariffs. Entry to the EEC will undoubtedly cause great concern in that sector.
I also want to mention the car assembly industry. Lately, on a television programme one of the main proponents of entry to the EEC, Mr. Sweetman, said that as a result of entry our car assembly industry would disappear but this would in some way be counteracted because we would get cheaper cars assembled in Gemany and Britain. The fact that something in the region of 7,000 jobs could be lost as a result of this was blandly mentioned by the speaker and no attempt was made to investigate the amount of hardship to the huge number who would become redundant if the car assembly industry were to disappear. It is not good enough to say that 10,000 jobs will be created over five years as a result of entry into the EEC; the fact that 7,000 people in one industry could lose their jobs is surely horrifying enough and if one of those who are in favour of entering the EEC can indicate this surely we must be on our guard against entering.
I stress those three areas particularly for the attention of the Government as areas that will be very vulnerable. I hope that in his concluding remarks the Minister for Foreign Affairs will indicate to the people in these industries what their prospects will be and what protection he intends to give on entering the EEC.
On a point of order, I want to know if this is a fixed time debate. I understand it will end at 10.30 this evening. I was anxious to express the views of those I represent on this very important subject. I understand that there has been some sort of fixed timetable about which I knew nothing. It seems to me that there is no point in having a debate on the EEC if you decide you will have three or four factual speakers, shall we say, from each party without giving the ordinary backbencher such as myself an opportunity of stating his opinion on the Common Market. I gather that at 9 o'clock the Chair will call on the Labour speaker after which we shall have a Fine Gael speaker and after that a Fianna Fáil speaker all offering stereotyped opinions on the Common Market. Surely a debate such as this should be thrown wide open so that anybody should be in a position to speak. In other words, the whole debate is a farce.
Is this not the usual practice? This is what the Deputy's own Whip and the Labour Whip agreed to.
I did not know anything about this.
As I understand it, I think an arrangement was made—
The only arrangement is that no speaker may exceed 30 minutes which means that Deputy Esmonde might get in.
This helps Deputy Esmonde.
I do not want to stop Major de Valera. I am sure he has a good deal to say but what I object to is some Whips' arrangement of which I have no cognisance.
The Deputy should contact his own Whip.
This debate did not really start today nor will it end today and, like many such debates, for those who have been studying it carefully it becomes a matter of detail and, perhaps, of technical points. For the bulk of those who have not studied it in detail the discussion of the details sometimes causes more confusion than enlightenment. For that reason I should like to approach the matter for a moment on a much broader basis than the technical consideration of the pros and cons of entering into this European unit or what shows every sign of becoming a unit. At the risk of appearing irrelevant or, perhaps, too diffuse, one cannot deal with a problem of this nature without having some regard to the historical perspective. We can only assess the problem facing us, the choice of entering or not entering Europe, in the light of certain historical factors and then of economic factors of the moment.
The historical factors are these: for Europe it now seems that after a century Germany and France in particular, two independent Continental powers, are prepared to enter into this greater unit and the Six are already there and that there is a basis at least for the ultimate unification of Europe as some kind of supranational institution. Straightaway, one can see the trend is there towards enlargement. The USA started as a number of what were really single states which ultimately federated to the extent that to the world at large the United States presents itself as a homogeneous unit and something in the nature of a very large nation. A similar process occurred in the Union of Soviet Republics. We are prone to forget that both in the case of the USA and of the Soviet Union that these are, in fact, unions of other units, national or in some cases not quite national but unions which developed historically. These unifications, call them confederations or whatever you wish, these states have amalgamated to the point where they present a united front to the world economically, socially and militarily. While this development is going on—it happened rapidly as far as the east is concerned, in the last 50 years—Europe went into the last war as the historical nonentity it had become. I say "historical nonentity" because the natural units which formed Europe before the two World Wars were so isolated and so competitive with each other that the idea of a broader European culture was largely blotted out.
With the big economic and supranational units of the United States and the Soviet Union the problem for Europe as a whole, if the culture of Europe and the economics of Europe are to survive, is that countries like France, Germany, Spain, Britain, and any other country in Europe one cares to mention, cannot compete alone with the two supranational units I have mentioned. There is, therefore, a definite tendency towards the reunification of Europe. What ultimate form that will take I, for one, will not dare to prophesy. One often sees a trend in history but then some discontinuity occurs and another line is pursued. Whatever way it happens, the ultimate amalgamation of Europe is likely to come, and this is the problem we have to face.
Whether we like it or not, it does seem that the Six are established and that there are prospects of other countries, notably Britain, joining the Six. There are proposals, admittedly in the future, for monetary union and other forms of integration. What we have to ask ourselves in this circumstance is: what are we to do? It may be very flattering to admit that we are sovereign and have a free choice but we cannot get away from exercising that choice. The process of the integration of Europe is by no means complete. The method of unification may take unforeseen turns and that fact must be taken cognisance of. Six countries have amalgamated and Britain is applying to join. There are peripheral problems; someone mentioned Austria and one might also mention Spain and Ireland. That is the first fact we have to face. Whether we like it or not, we have no control over it because it has happened.
The next fact we must take into account is Britain's application to join and the likelihood of its succeeding. The first question one has to ask is whether Britain will go in or stay out and the second is what do we do in the case of either alternative. It is not a popular thing to say—sometimes the truth is bitter—but from the economic point of view it is very difficult to see how one can avoid, quite apart from the other things, an application to join when one examines all the economic factors. I am not going to go into the details which the people studying this problem and dealing with it at the moment have been debating. There are undoubtedly pros and cons in every particular issue. One fact we have to face at the very beginning is this. If we stay out, how do we live; and, if we go in what do we do?
From what I know, the suggestions of association and the other suggestions which have been made are a form of escaping from the real issue—and I do not mean to be offensive by saying that. We must remember we are not dealing with a legal debate or a legal draft; we are going to be dealing with an economic reality. From the economic point of view we have to make up our minds what to do if Britain goes in or stays out, because unfortunately there is an inter-linking between the economy of Britain and our economy which we cannot ignore. Many people may deplore that relationship, but it is a fact; and if that relationship were to be completely broken or seriously prejudiced without preparation could we survive? These are very real business-like questions which have to be asked.
We have heard about agreements like the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement and we have had debates on how good or how bad they are. But one very interesting fact is this. When these relationships are re-examined or new arrangements are made they are the cause of a great deal of concern. The impact of any such agreement on the lives of our people, whether they be in industry or in agriculture, is immediate and such agreements decide the course of things. In another debate perhaps we can discuss the pros and cons of that in detail.
The bitter truth seems to be that there is a certain element of coercion in the facts: the fact of the trend towards the unity of Europe and the fact of the British application. I admit it would be a very unwilling way of entering if we were merely to make our decision on that basis, but it is a real factor which we cannot ignore. If we were to completely base our case on whether Britain went in or stayed out we would be losing opportunities offered to us. When one looks at the reality of life in Ireland, the reality of our economics, the reality of the way our people face it, the type of life they want, the standards of living they have and the amount of work they are prepared to put in, it is very hard to come to the conclusion that the right thing to do would be to go it alone.
There are many of us in this House with traditions that go back to a period when the great hope of the nation, even as late as 50 years ago was "To go it alone" as an independent, national unit with emphasis on economic independence. It is hard for those of us brought up in that tradition to face the realities of the present day and, in particular, the reality of the amalgamation of smaller units and communities into bigger units, whether for economic, political or other purposes. But this is something that has gone on apace. It is something outside our control. The world is getting smaller. The entire globe can be covered in a relatively short space of time and this is forcing a certain unification on the whole human race, particularly in Europe.
I would say to those who dislike, for traditional or other reasons, the idea of being associated with anybody that there are a couple of questions that must be answered. Would our people be prepared to undergo the economic discipline necessary to survive outside? Would they? We have the statistics for our economy as a whole and I have doubts as to whether our people would be prepared to do what the Germans and the Japanese did after the war. If our people were prepared to do what these two nations did, and to build up our economy, as they built up theirs, there might be something in certain arguments advanced as to why we should stay out. But unless we are prepared to sacrifice standards of living, and work much harder to build up the nation on its own, it is difficult to come to any conclusion other than that the wise thing to do is to enter the European Economic Community.
So far, I have given two negative reasons, more in answer to those propounding the view that we should stay out, rather than as a positive reason why we should go in. It is desirable that people should study the realities of the situation. What would we do? When people debate that question they should take into account Britain in the Common Market and the total disruption of our present economic situation. However, these are negative arguments. Let me deal with it in a more positive way. Here is a new situation with advantages and drawbacks. Should we not examine what the advantages are and let the public, who have a very deep interest in this because all our lives will be vitally affected, inform themselves on both the opportunities and the disadvantages? In all probability it is not possible for us now to pursue a line of approach that might have appeared valid 50 years ago because of the factors I have mentioned in regard to Europe and Britain. This is a new situation in which there is, if it is properly handled, an opportunity for us to go into a particular association with possibly more independence than we have up to this.
The economic interrelationship between ourselves and Britain has had its economic advantages for us, but it has also had its disadvantages. May there not now be an opportunity for balancing this? May there not be more opportunities for us culturally? From the point of view of our nationality as a whole, may there not be more opportunity for us if we go in rather than if we stay out? Our own culture was in large measure swallowed up in an English-speaking culture. I am not decrying that culture, but the fact is our association with Britain has conditioned our cultural environment. There are other broad cultures to be found in Europe. It seems to me there are opportunities for us to realise cultural aspirations in a larger Europe. We will be in a much broader environment. The language will probably tip the balance in a particular direction, but association with European cultures could be much more helpful to us than might be imagined at first sight.
As far as sovereignty is concerned the interrelationship of all the peoples of the world is de facto making certain inroads on concepts. In association, in the strict sense, there is no question of sacrificing sovereignty at all, or loss of sovereignty. In every association, be it a trading association or anything else, there has to be give as well as take. If you like to call that “sacrifice”, well and good. In a broader Europe may there not be a better opportunity for us to assert our own national individuality than there is in a continuation of a set of circumstances which belong to the early part of this century and before it and which are no longer valid? It may be a matter at this stage of Irish nationalism, Irish culture and the Irish outlook facing the fact that this is 1971 and that, in the years of this decade, big changes are likely to take place in Europe, that we cannot avoid being affected by these changes, and that we have to make decisions in that time affecting the future of the country.
Grasping all these facts might it not be better if we approached this problem from the point of view of seizing the opportunities that will be there to develop our national entity, to develop our individuality as a free community in that European situation, rather than to approach it in a defeatist way or from the point of view of one doing it under a certain compulsion of fact or economics or something like that? As I said, I do not want to delay the House. Perhaps Deputy Esmonde wants to get in a word.
I do not want to restrict the Deputy.
I do not want to take up the time of the House either. I have talked in very general terms. We must agree there are problems here. There is for and against going in, but are we as free in our choice as all that? Would we be prepared to take the consequences of not going in? And the people should be equally informed of the consequences of not going into this association as well as the consequences of going in.
When one considers the inevitable trend in Europe, when one considers the factual situation in regard to our economics, particularly in relation to our neighbour, one is driven to a certain conclusion. However, having said that, the overall message I would like to send out is this: we have to make a decision. A decision to go in has advantages as well as disadvantages. There are opportunities there, cultural and economic. Admittedly it will take a great deal of realistic thinking and hard work. We have had a fairly easy time in this country for the past 50 years. We may have to face a harder, more competitive time, but we would have to face that to a higher degree if we stayed out. If we decide to go in, having considered all the factors, then let us go in and make the most of it; let us go in with the knowledge that we are going in and not being dragged in, so to speak, by the hair of the head.
Everyone debating this subject from the point of view of the ordinary citizen has to my mind the duty—I myself have not quite discharged this responsibility tonight—to state clearly and unequivocally the pros and the cons, to point out the advantages and the disadvantages. Those of us who in the initial stages had certain reservations and now find ourselves coming to the point at which we believe it is the right move to go in, then let us go in fully determined to make the most of it for this country.
How much time have I, Sir?
Six minutes.
I would not disagree with the last speaker; I would be in favour of going into the Common Market. However, I am not satisfied with the negotiations as they are going on now. I hoped that today we would have got some information from the Government side as to what the actual position was. I was always hopeful that we would have had separate negotiations, that our position would have been negotiated as it relates to us, entirely independent of any of the other applicants. It always makes me nervous when I hear the repeated statement from the Government side that we all go in on the same day, that we all go in on an agreed policy.
Our conditions are entirely different from those of the British. We are tied to the British economy and for that reason I never could understand those who argue the point that we will give up our national sovereignty by joining the Common Market. The only hope we have of being released from Britain to which we have been tied hand and foot for 50 years, with 70,000 unemployed and emigration continuing, is as a sovereign nation to have our entry into the Common Market freely negotiated by Irish Ministers, and may I stress "Irish Ministers", not Irish civil servants. I am not satisfied from anything I have heard stated here today that our negotiations are not being conducted by civil servants and that we have not Ministers following the advice they get from civil servants without negotiating the political issues.
In the few moments at my disposal let me refer to the one political issue which is a dangerous political one for us, that is, fisheries. Several Deputies have spoken on this issue, and the Taoiseach has intimated that he regards it as one of our serious problems. The simple facts are that we have within our compass here the possibility of a complete economic advancement by fishery extension. The argument used by the Taoiseach and by the Minister for Foreign Affairs is that our fisheries are inshore and that we shall have to compete with deep-sea fishing fleets. Is it not time that someone in this country said to himself: "We have this inshore fishery harvest available to us. Why do we not avail of it? Why do we not invest capital in developing a deep-sea fishery fleet?" If we develop such a fleet and protect it properly and protect our inshore interests, with the harbours we have at our disposal surely we are capable of standing up to any opposition that comes to us from Continental Europe or any of the other countries? There is no point in wishful thinking and saying we will have to get terms within the EEC. They have dogmatically stated that if you wish to enter the EEC you have to accept the rules of the EEC; you cannot change the rules beforehand. That is why Britain has failed to get in all along.
There seems to be a general idea in this country among political commentators, who are not always right in their forecasts—in fact they have been rather amiss recently in forecasts in regard to the political situation here —that Britain is sure to get into the Common Market. Let us make no mistake; Britain faces a difficult political situation, and it may not be politically possible for her to get in. There are at least 40 Conservative MPs who are what are known as "little Englanders", Commonwealth supporters, who would vote against the entry of the British into the EEC. There is a large volume of opinion in the Labour Party against it and therefore it may be politically impossible for Britain to enter the Common Market. Anybody who has gone to the Council of Europe and studied the debates on the New Zealand problem as it relates to the United Kingdom must surely realise that if Britain joins the EEC and fails to make some sort of treaty in regard to their obligations to New Zealand she will be ditching New Zealand and throwing 3 million people, mainly of British origin, some of Irish origin, into the doldrums politically, economically and otherwise. Australia is also kicking up a dust in regard to the question of British entry.
The British face a difficult political position and it is more than likely that they will not be able politically to enter the Common Market in spite of the camaraderie that existed between M. Pompidou and Mr. Heath the other day, the will to enter and so forth. The will to enter is all right but countries must face the political issue. In my opinion Britain faces a difficult issue and it is unlikely that she will go in. Therefore, before I sit down, adhering to the rules of Dáil Éireann, to allow the Leader of the Labour Party to oppose entry to the Common Market, may I say that it was strange to my mind that the Taoiseach gave no indication today of what this country would do in the event of Britain not joining the Common Market?
Hear, hear.
Are we to be Britain's stooge forever? Are we to be economically under Britain's umbrella forever? That is a question I pose to the Fianna Fáil Party. I do not know whether the Minister for Foreign Affairs is free to express an opinion or whether he is tied and bound by a civil servant but when he gets up to reply I would ask him to answer that simple question if Britain does not go in what does Ireland do?
It is a pity the Minister for Foreign Affairs did not express some of the things we heard tonight from Deputy de Valera who stated very positively that as far as membership of the EEC is concerned it is a case of "for" and "against". To the shame of the Minister for Foreign Affairs he dubbed those who opposed Ireland's application for full membership of the EEC as being unpatriotic and traitorous. Patriotism is not the monopoly of the Fianna Fáil Party and as far as treachery is concerned let the Minister for Foreign Affairs and his colleagues make up their own minds about that. This he said in a burst of anger, I suppose, when he returned recently from Brussels and was interviewed by the Press and he repeated it on the radio. That is not the sort of comment designed to create the atmosphere for a calm and a logical debate on the very serious decision that this country has to make.
I suppose if the Government were to be criticised on one thing more than another it would be their blasé approach and particularly that of the Minister for Foreign Affairs who in the last two years in particular assured all and sundry that everything would be all right as soon as Ireland became a member of the EEC. We are deeply concerned about the effect of membership of the EEC. The Labour Party in Ireland are not alone in that. There is deep feeling in all the applicant countries. There is deep feeling in all the political parties of the four who are now applicants for membership. As a matter of fact, the feeling was so deep, people were so concerned and the Norwegian Prime Minister was so concerned because of his views, that he felt constrained to resign his office a few months ago. I do not think anybody in Norway would describe him as being a traitor or as being unpatriotic but this is the sort of vulgar abuse that we are used to getting now from Deputy Hillery on the EEC and from other Ministers on other topics. Of course, we do not mind this. We will be proved right again I have no doubt because in 1966, when we were the Party that attacked the Anglo Irish Free Trade Area Agreement in similar terms, we were described as a party who were unpatriotic or were traitors. Were we wrong then? Were we entirely wrong then, if you like? I do not think anybody can blame us for our concern for the economic, the social and the political future of this country.
Right or wrong, over and above every other section in the community and over and above every political party in this country, I think we have done the best service to the nation in provoking debate. We have done a service to this nation in questioning week after week the Taoiseach, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, the Minister for Finance, as to what Ireland's position will be in certain circumstances in resepect of certain things—economic, social and political —should we become full members of the EEC. Unlike the Minister for Foreign Affairs and his Cabinet colleagues who have not queried or queried in public until recently the effects of full membership. They have been traipsing around the country, particularly Deputy Hillery, telling the farmers how well off they will be and telling industrialists that they have nothing to fear.
If any member of the Fianna Fáil Party read the address delivered by the Minister for Foreign Affairs at the annual dinner of the Federation of Irish Industries on 15th April, I do not think anybody would be proud of that address or say that it represented the views even of the Fianna Fáil Party let alone representing the views of the people of Ireland. I read it twice because I could not believe what I saw in it. Signor Spinelli, one of the commissioners of the EEC was present at that dinner. The title I gave to the address was: "Please let us in. We will be good boys." He had the neck to tell Signor Spinelli that we were ready, that we had been preparing for the past ten years, that economic growth was steadily increasing. It was a miserable sort of performance. I am sure Signor Spinelli knows more about the economy of this country than Deputy Hillery thinks he does. I am sure he was not impressed by that speech because without degrading the country of which we are all proud I do not believe we are in this perfect position or this near perfect position.
However, in the last week or two I have noticed a little restraint in the speeches and the comments being made by the Minister for Foreign Affairs because now it is expected by some people that membership of the EEC is just around the corner. I listened to the Minister for Foreign Affairs on the radio last Sunday and I did not notice the same enthusiasm now that the crunch is coming, now that there is a possibility of full membership. His advice to people on that occasion, particularly as far as industry is concerned, was that they should worry to work. I should like him to tell us tonight what he means by that expression. I suppose he means that they should start now to work as hard as they can in order to prepare for membership. We remember the last ten wasted years when there were nothing but speeches from the various Ministers and from different Taoisigh telling the people of Ireland what to do without giving them the necessary help to re-equip themselves, to re-adapt, to prepare themselves in the way they should have been prepared, particularly in the way that Irish industry should have been prepared.
We are glad we provoked this debate. If we are unpatriotic and if we are traitors because we did this we now know that our opposition, our awkward questions, have borne fruit because there are other organisations in the country, apart from Fianna Fáil, who are not now so enthusiastic, who do not regard it as the bonanza which the Minister for Foreign Affairs described it as up to very recently. Fisheries was not, until nine months ago, an issue. The question has been very ably posed by a Deputy from the Fine Gael Party, Deputy Begley, and Deputy Kavanagh of the Labour Party as to what is to happen to the 5,000 people who are engaged in fishing. What is to happen to the fishing grounds of Ireland? Are we to allow people from other European countries to come in alongside our coastline and to ravish our fishing grounds. For the Norwegians this may be the breaking point.
We have been virtually committed anyway even before the terms were known. It seems to me that as far as negotiation is concerned we pretend to go through the motions but as the Minister for Finance said here recently on some issue we must go through the motions but we have got to accept the inevitable. This has been his whole approach to the Treaty of Rome and the conditions of membership of EEC, that we must accept the inevitable, "inevitable" meaning if it is full membership that fishermen's livelihoods will be badly damaged, so will our fishing grounds, so will those people who are employed in industry and so will the farmers of Ireland be very badly injured indeed. As Dr. Hillery has said, we are accepting the inevitable. The inevitable is just as I have described, if they insist on carrying on negotiations as they are at the present time.
Even the British Tories say, and I quote this from one of their documents: "We will negotiate. We will look at the package deal and then we will decide if it serves our interests or not." Not so we. We were far and beyond the financial and industrial strength of Great Britain because at Luxembourg, in June, 1970, as has been said here today, the Minister for Foreign Affairs stated: "I now reaffirm on behalf of the Irish Government acceptance by the Irish Government of full acceptance of the Treaties of Rome and Paris and without any qualification whatsoever." We had some mumbles from the Taoiseach here today that they are trying to negotiate this small thing and that small thing. Dr. Hillery went on to say: "My Government accept the political objectives." In other words, he threw himself at the EEC and said: "For God's sake, let us in." As I said, that has been amply demonstrated in the speech he made to the Confederation of Irish Industry some time in April.
We should, therefore, contrast the attitude of our Government with the attitude of the British, the Danish and the Norwegian Governments. All accept that the British application is the crucial one. We may pretend we are equal negotiators but we are not. All the publicity available to us shows that the British application is the crucial one, as shown by the visit by Mr. Heath to Mr. Pompidou. Our Taoiseach did not have to go to see Mr. Pompidou. There had not to be conversations between the Prime Ministers of Norway or Denmark with Mr. Pompidou. Therefore, I say the British application is certainly the crucial one.
What is the British situation now? The Taoiseach said today that the three crucial things that now stand between Britain and entry into the EEC are (1) New Zealand and its problem with regard to dairy produce and lamb, (2) the question of the importation of Commonwealth sugar and (3) the British contribution to the agricultural fund. There is some agreement we are told—a pretty vague sort of agreement —on the question of the Commonwealth sugar but there is no finality as far as (1) and (3) are concerned, that is the situation of New Zealand with regard to dairy produce and lamb and the British contribution to the agricultural fund.
It could well be, as Deputy Sir Anthony Esmonde said, that a number of members of the Tory Party will find the final terms of the New Zealand question with regard to dairy produce and lamb and the agricultural contribution to the agricultural fund unacceptable. What happens then? If the British Labour Party also find that the terms are unacceptable then it is possible that Britain may not get in. If there is a split in the Tory ranks to the extent as has been described in the entire British Labour Party it means that Britain will not get into the EEC. So Ireland cannot plan now as if Britain were a certainty for membership.
The Minister here tonight ought to tell us what the position will be in that eventuality. He knows, as well as I do, that opinion against entry amongst the ordinary people in Britain is hardening very much indeed. As far as we in this party can gather no other European Government is working on the firm assumption that Britain will be admitted to the EEC. If they are not admitted, what will our position be? Will we be told that or will we be told that this is purely a hypothetical question? I do not think it is.
I regret there appears to be a difference between Irish negotiations and those of Britain, Denmark and Norway. I wonder is it real negotiation? Are our representatives there across the table with those of the Commission really negotiating? As far as I could gather from the speech which the Taoiseach made here today—I must confess I only heard it as I did not have a copy of it—it appeared to me that what our Irish representatives or negotiators were doing was they were submitting certain views and now we are awaiting the reply. If there is hard bargaining on specific things let us be told here tonight what they are.
The Taoiseach spoke about submissions making our views known, the Commissioners were to consider these, deliberate on them and then tell us whether or not they are acceptable. In any case, whether they are or are not, it appears to me that the Minister for Foreign Affairs believes that we will have to sacrifice all these things, no matter what they are, in order to become a member of the Community. There are major points of negotiation for Britain as I have mentioned and these were listed by the Taoiseach. There was the question of sugar from the Commonwealth, New Zealand and her dairy produce and lamb and Britain's contribution to the agricultural fund.
As far as we can gather Britain will stand out for these and these will be a condition of membership. If they do not get terms in respect of two of these I believe they just will not go in. Norway are just as serious and are not flinging themselves at the door of the EEC. Norway want permanent exclusion of agriculture as far as their membership is concerned, because their farmers now have higher prices. If they join the Community their farmers would lose half their income, on the present agricultural prices in the EEC and the projected farm prices of the EEC. All the evidence suggests that they will also be tough in the matter of the protection of their fishery grounds.
Is the Deputy saying that farmers will not gain anything?
I have only 30 minutes. The Minister has been talking all over the country and he will get the Press quicker than I can.
There is nobody stopping the Deputy.
Is the Minister not afraid of the Deputy?
No.
Norway will also insist, as far as our information goes—and we do not talk to Ministers but only to Socialists there—on a regional policy for the northern portion of Norway. As far as Denmark is concerned, again as far as our information goes— we do not get this from foreign Ministers or foreign civil servants—they will insist on protection of their land from foreign purchase. These countries will stand on these things. All the evidence points to the fact that Britain will stand on certain things; she will go so far but no further; so will Norway and so will Denmark.
I would like to ask the Minister tonight on what will Ireland make a stand. Will we make a stand on the fisheries policy or will we make a stand on land purchase, for example? How far are we prepared to go? At what stage do we say, "No; our country could not bear that?" Again let me ask the question, are we really negotiating? The farmers of this country seem to be very enthusiastic about entry into the EEC and are very critical about people like members of our party on the question of the EEC.
It must have been brought to the Minister's notice the comment by Mr. T.J. Maher, the President of the NFA, after having talks with fellow European farmers, that we were not really negotiating at all. The time is short and unfortunately one cannot dwell on these things at great length. In the next debate there should be a different form so that there might be either a particular subject discussed or a smaller number of people representative of the House would speak for a longer time.
I believe the real failure of the EEC, as they admit themselves, is their failure to develop a regional policy. We believe that in the absence of a regional policy for places like Ireland and particularly the west of Ireland, Scotland, Southern Italy, Northern Norway and North-West France, these areas will fall further behind in terms of development.
I know that from time to time the Minister has given Southern Italy as an example of an undeveloped place that has become developed because Italy is a member of the European Economic Community. This is pure distortion because it does not mean that Southern Italy has benefited greatly from Italy's membership of the EEC. The Minister talks about a regional policy and presents that as an example for the development of the western part of Ireland. This development in Southern Italy is confined and concentrated on two small areas that will not be recognised, I am sure, in this House which shows how relatively insignificant they are in relation to the big towns and cities of the south of Italy. They are Bari and Taranto.
We have got no assurances and no reassurances from any Government spokesman and certainly none from the Taoiseach as to what will be the position of Irish workers, Irish farmers, or Irish fishermen. Every Deputy with any sense of responsibility, every public representative, and every industrialist is asking what will happen not just during the transitional period but when we become a full member of the EEC. Not in this debate because he has only got half an hour, but at some time the Minister should tell us what will happen to specific industries. We have not got clear-cut information, for example, about the car assembly industry. We have not got clear-cut information about the woollen and worsted industry, or about the foundries. The Minister for Industry and Commerce presumed— this was a word which went through his whole speech—that this would happen, that that would happen, and that another thing would happen. He presumed that the Americans would come in here and establish industries. I am sure he knows how presumption is defined in the penny catechism: A foolish expectation of salvation without taking the necessary means to obtain it. That is exactly the attitude——
Stick to the catechism.
——not only of the Minister for Foreign Affairs but also of the Minister for Industry and Commerce, and the whole Cabinet I am sure. The terms will be available when the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Government decide that "negotiation is at an end and these are the terms." They will be put before Dáil Éireann. I have no doubt that the gentlemen on my right will troop into the division lobbies no matter what the issue is in order to keep Fianna Fáil together.
We are told that there is to be a referendum. I was not present in the House for all of Deputy Cosgrave's speech but I think he suggested that this referendum should be held on its own and should not be messed up, so to speak, with any other issues, that it should not be messed up with local government elections or anything like that, and the issue should be put fairly and squarely before the Irish people so that they will know exactly what they are doing. It devolves upon the Government—and I am not talking about the Fianna Fáil Party but all the agencies of the Government: Industry and Commerce, Foreign Affairs, Agriculture and Fisheries—to put the full facts before the people and, as Deputy de Valera said tonight, the facts for and against. Having regard to Deputy de Valera's speech here tonight I do not think the Minister for Foreign affairs would be entitled to suggest again that those who are against membership of the EEC are either unpatriotic or traitors.
For the record—and within the five minutes I have I hope to be able to do it—I want to state the official view of the Labour Party on the EEC. Deputy Keating, our spokesman on the EEC in the limited time he had, suggested for this party a trading agreement with the Six or the Eight or Nine and said that we honestly believed that this was the best type of arrangement. If the Government continue in office and have a majority to give parliamentary approval to any terms of a treaty of accession to the EEC, if they pursue their negotiations which they will if Britain are doing likewise, the Labour Party will fight within the Dáil on the terms of the treaty. If full membership is approved by the Dáil on the Government's present terms, Labour will fight in any referendum that arises to amend the national Constitution.
Within the Dáil, Labour will seek to have the following principles accepted without prejudice to the party position. The underdeveloped state of our industrial sector must be recognised by the EEC and no net loss of industrial employment must result from membership. The social structure of our rural community must not be damaged by the enforced implementation of the EEC agricultural policy. The special dependence of the Irish economy on agriculture must be recognised and safeguarded. The impact of membership on the balance of payments must not worsen to any extent an already serious situation. The British are rightly concerned that a penalty of membership will be a drain on their international payments position through the operation of the agricultural levies at a level which would prove unacceptable to them.
The Irish balance of payments faces the opposite threat: a deterioration arising from increased industrial imports. By now the Government should have computed a figure beyond which they will not allow this deterioration to go and should be using it as a sticking point in negotiations. The entire west of the Shannon, the three counties of Ulster under our jurisdiction, and West Cork and Kerry must be given special facilities for industrial development The special position of the Shannon Free Airport must be maintained. The national policy of neutrality in relation to international military blocs must be maintained. There must be no loss of national sovereignty over our land, fisheries, or natural resources. In particular there must be strict limitations on the right of foreigners to purchase Irish land.
There must be no dissimiliarities in the treatment of areas on either side of the Border within the context of an EEC regional policy, if ever drafted and implemented. The present undemocratic nature of the Community institutions must be radically altered by the end of the transitional period, in particular by extending the powers of the European Parliament over the Commission. In effect, this means an insistence on the implementation of Article 138 of the Treaty of Rome as a condition of membership, specifying the election of the European Parliament by universal suffrage. There must be no limitation on the right of an Irish Government to implement socialist policies. The European Community must develop a regional policy with teeth which will benefit the peripheral areas of the Community.
The Labour Party believe that many of the arguments for or against membership cannot be quantified until the terms of accession are known. At that stage, Labour demand that the entire question, together with all the relevant information, be placed before the people and put to a referendum for or against membership. A decision of such magnitude and such consequence cannot be left solely to the secret caucus meetings of the Government Party. Democracy demands that the people should decide. For that reason the people of Ireland should be given by way of referendum an opportunity to decide whether this country should become a member of the EEC. I would seriously suggest to the Minister that, even at this late stage, there should be real negotiations so that the interests of the people of this country whether they be farmers, or workers, or fishermen, will be safeguarded.
Listening to the Taoiseach today opening this debate I must say I was attacked by a certain sense of depression. There was a lack of inspiration, a lack of conviction, a lack of interest almost, and a listlessness in his approach which did not augur well for the negotiations and which made me feel concerned about the way in which this whole business is being tackled. Perhaps it was an off day for the Taoiseach; I do not know. It certainly was a depressing beginning to this debate.
One of the things that has been said frequently, and is still being said frequently, is that the Irish public are not being told enough about the EEC. In one sense this is a somewhat unfair remark because the amount of debate going on in the country is extraordinary as compared with anywhere else. As somebody who had occasion recently to speak about the EEC in Scotland, in Northern Ireland, and in Britain, I can say that the contrast between the amount of interest and debate in this country and there is quite striking. One can fairly say that this debate is taking place with no great thanks to the Government. It is true that in recent months, and in recent weeks in particular, the Minister has become Minister for home EEC affairs as well as Minister for the negotiations and has been carrying quite a burden in trying to put across what the EEC is all about. He has not had much help from his colleagues and the Government as a whole have not been doing their duty. Fortunately others have been doing so and some of the criticisms and attacks made on those who are opposing membership, by the Minister and others in his party, have been unfair and unwarranted. If we decide to go into this European Economic Community it will be a decision which will be permanent. It is a decision which we will not reverse. It is vital therefore that the people should hear the arguments on both sides and those who put the case against, be they in some cases members of the Labour Party or in other cases members of other groups such as the Common Market Study Group, are doing a useful job by ensuring that the people will be fully informed. If we did not have the case being put in that way the case for would not be put as vigorously or as cogently and people would not be hearing both sides of the case.
We should be careful, and the Minister should be careful, in criticising those who have been putting the case against because they are performing a public service in doing so. Indeed, his own Department's achievements in the sphere of information so far have been disappointing. We have had these couple of pamphlets, which are helpful, on fisheries and on the purchase of land, but they are not exactly major contributions to our knowledge. We have had recently a little book on The Common Market and How it Works issued by the Department of Foreign Affairs. This little booklet has one or two odd features, one of the most curious ones being that the excellent graphs at the back which provide comparisons in respect of rates of economic growth, trade and growth of real wages, tell us a lot about different countries but for some extraordinary reason do not mention Ireland at all. At first I thought that it was because of a certain coyness that the Irish figures would not show up very well, an understandable political suspicion, but I must withdraw it because having looked at the figures I find that Ireland, at least in particular cases, would have shown up reasonably well, about the middle of each graph, and the omission of Ireland can only be attributable to some extraordinary neglect and incompetence in the Department. To produce this little booklet, the first thing we have had of a general character from the Department about the Common Market and how it works and to tell us all about The Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, the UK and the US, and not to tell us anything about Ireland is an omission which I simply do not understand.
In the booklet itself there are references, which could be questioned which suggest that there is still a failure on the part of the Government to grasp the reality of the Community. There is a description of the Commission at one point in terms which suggest that those who compiled this booklet do not fully understand how the Commission works. The suggestion is that the Commission corresponds in many ways to a civil service but has rather greater authority than civil services usually have. That is developed somewhat later on but, really, for anybody in this day and age to say that that is a fair description of the European Economic Community is depressing to say the least. This is a body which is the nearest equivalent to a government because it is the body which initiates legislation, which has to defend it in parliament in reply to questions and while it does not have the final deciding voice it plays a role so near that of a government and so far removed from that of a civil service that this description is inadequate.
At another point the role of the Commission is again understated. We are told that the Commission's proposals are necessarily limited in scope —playing it down again—that firstly what it proposes must have been provided for under the Treaty setting up the Common Market. This of course is simply not so. The Community have, in the last 12 or 13 months, developed a number of policies which go outside the Rome Treaty, a policy under which, as a result of unanimous decisions of the Council of Ministers, the Commission have been authorised to bring forth proposals which are not within the framework of the Treaty, which do not arise directly from the Rome Treaty. Admittedly of course this can only be where there is a unanimous decision of the Commission to do so. However, we ought not be told that the Commission cannot do anything that is not in the Rome Treaty because this simply is not the case.
Therefore I fault both the quantity and the quality of the information which the Minister, his Department and the Government have been furnishing on this subject. It is fortunate that the country has not had to depend on the Government for information but that it has been given the two sides of the case by others. I sometimes feel in the curious position, trying to make the case for the EEC—membership of which will benefit this country—of doing the Government's job for them and becoming slightly irritated because they are making so little contribution to the work. The other thing which is very striking is that we have not had from the Government so far any attempt to assess the consequences of EEC membership. We have had in the White Paper of a year or so ago some useful data on the agricultural side, indicating what the effect of the price policy will be, but at no point is there any attempt to quantify the results of this nor in the industrial sector is there any such attempt. Indeed in the industrial sector this is, as I have had occasion to say before, extremely deficient. It does not mention any individual industry and you would not know from reading it that we have had a Committee on Industrial Organisation, a Second Programme, an NIEC studying these things. One would not have thought from the White Paper that these things had ever happened.
What I want to know from the Minister now is can he assure us that the Government are going to put before the people, in good time, an assessment of what the consequences of membership will be? Let him not put us off with talk of "Oh, we will have to wait until the negotiations are over." Of course there are matters under negotiation which will have a significant impact in particular sections but it is more than possible to produce an assessment based on some set of assumptions, particularly as the areas in respect of which the negotiations will make a significant impact are not that many, nor are the effects that great, with one exception to which I shall come later. At any rate whether he gives it to us now or at the end of the summer, or when the negotiations have been completed, I urge him to give the House an assurance that before the people come to vote on this there will be put before them some assessment of the economic consequences. The economic consequences to this country will be very great. In fact I would venture to say that there is no country of the applicants, and perhaps no countries of the Six, in which the effects in the different sections of the economy will be as great as here or as perceptible. In some instances the effects will be adverse, in some instances they will be fatal, but I am convinced that the net balance is favourable and indeed extremely favourable but the effects are great and the people are entitled to be told what they are.
I want to know is a study of this kind going on. As far as I am aware the body which one would have expected to be devoting its attention to this issue in view of its great importance, the Economic and Social Research Institute, have not been asked or invited to undertake such a study. Perhaps I am wrong but is there such a study and is it going to be a study at the high level of professional and economic competence which this situation calls for? Are we going to be given a model of the economy as it might be in 1980 similar to that model of the economy in 1970 contained in the Second Programme, one which will show us the consequences of the vast increases in agricultural income accruing from the agricultural price policy, showing us not alone the consequences directly for agriculture but the indirect consequences upon the agricultural processing industry and the agricultural supplying industry and the consequences through the multiplier effects of increased farm income for Irish industry and Irish distribution? These things are calculable; models of the economy exist which could be used for this purpose and we are entitled to be told what the overall net effects are likely to be. We all accept that any such assessment will be subject to a margin of error. This must inevitably be so but it may well be that the Government will find it proper to give us a range of estimates between which the truth might lie. That might be a cautious and proper approach but let us not be told that the job cannot be done, that although we could make an assessment in 1963 of what the economy would look like in 1970, were we in that year a full member of the EEC—because that was the assumption behind the Second Programme—that the job cannot now be done eight years later in respect of 1980. If it is to be done let us be told the answer before we have the vote and not after it.
I would like from the Minister some assurance that such an assessment, taking full account of the consequences, direct and indirect, through the multiplier effect of the increased income and the loss of income in the industrial sector, which would be adversely affected, will be given to us in good time, on a basis that will help the people to make up their minds. It would be tragic if the people were misled into taking what I believe would be a wrong decision of staying out because the Government had failed to communicate to them, in concrete and specifice terms, verifiable by an examination of the data and the assumptions on which it is based, what the consequences of membership would be.
I come now to the negotiations. I perceive from some of the things said in this House a sense of dissatisfaction with the negotiations to date. I think we all share this. There are reasons, some of which are not the Government's fault, some of which are, why the negotiations have not proceeded at a pace, in the case of Ireland, which gives us much to get our teeth into here today. It is a fact also, although the Taoiseach endeavoured to cover this up in his opening speech, that the promises of adequate parallelism, to use the technical term in the negotiations have not really been fulfilled. The Taoiseach told us that we were being kept informed of what was happening in the British negotiations and that we had the right to make representations. I am thinking back to what we thought adequate parallelism meant. I thought that it meant that as negotiations proceeded and propositions came up in the British negotiations which would have implications for this country, before agreement was reached on them our views would be sought and considered and, if necessary, if there was disagreement, there would be multilateral discussions at that point. There have been no signs of any such discussions. When a decision was taken in the British negotiations of extending the transitional period for agriculture and of having it in six instead of five steps we were informed after the decision had been announced. The Taoiseach said that final conclusions would be reached only on a multilateral basis, as if the decisions now taken are open to be reconsidered completely and renegotiated because we do not like them. This is unrealistic. It may be that the Government have to plead force majeur and that the Community itself have to plead force majeur also. There may be difficulties in negotiating in the way that was agreed. Let us not pretend that negotiations have gone satisfactorily in that respect. We must record our disappointment that it is not possible to achieve parallelism and that we have not had the opportunity for multilateral discussions on matters on which decisions have now been taken.
I am not clear from the Taoiseach's speech as to when we can expect our negotiations to commence. They have not commenced so far. We have put forward our views, but not completely. In relation to the export tax relief we are told that a detailed case is to be made for us in the future. Why has this case not yet been made? We are entitled to be told why. When can we expect replies to the points we have raised? At one stage the Taoiseach said that he expected replies on certain points soon, but he withdrew from that and said that he could not be sure whether they would come before the summer, and he spoke of getting replies on various points in the autumn. Am I right in thinking it to be improbable that we will get significant reactions on the main points in which we are concerned before the autumn? Will it be October or November before we begin to get answers on the issues in which we are interested and before we start negotiations on those matters relating in particular to the transitional period? I do not understand the suggestion that in so far as the export tax relief is concerned a detailed case is to be made. I hope that the Minister will tell us why this case has not been made so far.
There is the question of dumping. This was discussed at Question Time but we were at cross-purposes because of semantics. I take part of the blame for this.
What part?
It was generous on my part to admit to part of the blame. It is not easy at Question Time to clarify points because the Chair does not always permit a debate to clarify points. In law and in strict economic theory, dumping cannot exist within a single market but only unfair trading practices. The facts are that because of our geographical isolation the phenomenon which is dumping can occur within a Common Market. This has good and bad points. We are isolated in a way which will give us certain benefits. We will have the natural protection of the sea between us and the Common Market countries. We will also have a natural disadvantage when it comes to selling. That involves a cutting-off of Ireland to some degree, which is an imperfection in the theoretical Common Market. What protects a country from dumping within the genuine Common Market is that if someone sells goods to you at a low cost you can buy them and sell them back in his own town and undercut him in his own market. Dumping stops pretty quickly then. In such a market dumping does not arise. That does not happen with Ireland. Goods which were sold in the British market at £10 a ton could be sold at £8 per ton ex-Liverpool and delivered at £9 a ton in Dublin and undercut our manufacturers here, but we cannot send them back to Liverpool because they would be £10 a ton when they got there. This is a geographical fact which has economic implications. The Minister cannot say that there is no question of dumping at the end of the transitional period. There could be the phenomenon which in practical terms is dumping. It is not technically called dumping, but I do not care what name is given to it. I want to know precisely what agreement has been reached on this point. How are we to be protected in this regard?
The Minister told us that our objections had been withdrawn in respect of this matter beyond the transitional period. If we are satisfied that after the transitional period there will be no problem it can only be because some guarantee was given that there would be some method by which we can counteract this unfair trading practice. What has happened? I find it hard to believe that even this Government could have conceived a situation in which there could be no protection against this practice which would give us time for recourse. I would like clarification on this point and I am glad of the opportunity of developing it in a way which does not leave the Minister with an opportunity of evading the question and giving a technical meaning to the term "dumping."
The fishing policy is the most crucial single issue. I cannot speak too strongly about this. In my view the Community have acted improperly on this issue. I will not impute bad motives. I will accept that they were trying to reach agreement on a fishery policy for several years and that reaching agreement during negotiations they were not acting in bad faith in a manner designed to deceive us. The basic fact is that by reaching agreement during negotiations they have under their own negotiating procedure and in their own view pushed this matter out of court theoretically, and have brought it within this clause which the Taoiseach referred to as "matters which cannot be discussed and which have to be accepted" because of the Treaty of Rome. I do not accept that this excuse is adequate. We have the unique case where the policy in question has greater impact on the applicant countries than on the Six. In every other instance, the Six being so much bigger than us in population and in economic strength the policies they have reached are ones which have their main implication there and less implication for the four outside countries. It is possible to justify this kind of approach. We cannot go back on it at this stage. It is not possible to justify that approach in an area where 60 per cent of the fish is caught in the four applicant countries, and where the effect of this policy will be felt more in those countries. The whole balance of supply and demand will be changed by the enlargement of the Community, and policies appropriate to one situation will not be appropriate then. We must insist that this matter be reopened.
I have noted the Norwegian proposal. It is one which I had hoped our Government would have put forward. We must in some matters trust the Government because we cannot know precisely what the best negotiating technique is. If they have felt it better not to put forward their views this may be for a good reason. I am concerned that the Government should give the strongest possible support to the Norwegian proposal. This proposal rests itself fairly on the excellent principles on which the Community is founded. They accept that the right of establishment exists. In agriculture a man who works on a farm in a country for two years becomes entitled to buy land. This is a good rule which eliminates speculators. Just as that rule exists in the case of agriculture so it should exist in the case of fisheries. If a man is prepared to work as a deckhand on an Irish boat for two years I see no reason why he should not be allowed to settle here and become a fisherman. That is an acceptable principle in the context of the agricultural policy and equally acceptable in the context of the fishery policy. I do not accept that people can come here and pirate our fishing grounds. It is very important that proper controls should exist because of the obvious difficulties of maintaining a conservation policy vis-à-vis foreign vessels. If we had only to cope with Irish boats I can see a conservation policy working because Irish fishermen have enough commonsense not to fish out our waters. However, foreign fishermen have no such incentive to restrain themselves. A policy of conservation whereby foreign fishermen could fish in our waters in a certain way is not something about which I should be happy unless there were the most stringent controls.
It is my belief that the answer lies in the Norwegian proposal and I am concerned that the attitude of our Government to this proposal has not been positive enough. I do not think our Government have conveyed to Irish fishermen the kind of faith and determination one would like to see. I hope that the lack of conviction the Government have shown to the fishermen here is not being demonstrated in Brussels. I trust that in Brussels they are showing they are convinced that the solution must be found along these lines and that we will stand firm on this proposal.
It is right to put up a fight on an issue such as this. We have allies in this fight—the British and the Norwegians. We should not be put off by any doctrinaire stand on the technical line that it is not possible to negotiate something that has been agreed. In this case we can put forward grounds for making an exception.
With regard to land reform, I am not convinced that the Government's approach is the right one. I do not know that the right approach is to negotiate an exception. It may be that the right approach is to have a land reform policy carefully devised to meet our genuine needs of structural reform and one which would provide us with protection against speculative land purchases within the terms of the Rome Treaty and without discrimination on grounds of nationality.
I am not sure that we either need an exception or that we are wise in looking for one. If we start looking for an exception and do not get it, the policies we introduce designed to deal with this could be more likely to come under criticism as an evasion. I may be wrong in this but I should feel happier about the control of land purchases if I saw any sign that the Government were devising some policy which would ensure that land coming on the market would be bought up. If this land were bought up by the Land Commission, or an appropriate body, for subdivision among people in the area, it would ensure against speculative land prices. If this were done in a thorough way there would not be any land on the market available for foreigners.
This matter was before us in 1962 but now it is a matter of urgency. When membership becomes a real issue, as it is today, the value of Irish land is enhanced enormously by the benefits of the common agricultural price policy and this is when speculation will start. We have our own controls but I am not convinced that they are adequate in all cases. I should like to see a kind of land reform policy under EEC conditions which would give us the results we want because this will be necessary when our present discriminatory controls are removed.
I should like to have heard the Taoiseach speak in greater detail about economic and monetary union—perhaps the Minister will be able to tell us more about this matter. There has not been an adequate realisation of the fundamental impact of economic and monetary union if the proposals towards that end reach maturity. Economic and monetary union, eventually with a single currency, means in effect a single State. Once there is a single currency there is total interdependence between the different parts of that area and there must be a government to control that currency and the economy of the area. If we do not have this—and this warning must be given—there will be government by central bank. This will happen if the central bank is not controlled by a democratic parliament, and watched over by a democratic government, and it is not something any of us looks forward to. This is no aspersion on our own Central Bank but it is necessary for a government to be democratic and under democratic political control, and this must apply at the Community level. If economic and monetary union is to be achieved it must be matched by adequate supranational institutions if democracy is to be preserved in Europe.
In a country like this economic and monetary union—in itself desirable—could have adverse effects if proceeded to without the development of an adequate regional policy. By an adequate regional policy I mean a policy on such a scale and backed by such resources that there would be a real guarantee that the creation of a single currency would not be accompanied by the flow of capital and labour to the centre. It would be accompanied by a more rapid development of the less-developed periphery than of the centre. To achieve this we need a regional policy and I should like to hear from the Minister what he is doing about this.
One of the members of the Commission who was here in the past few months suggested at a meeting, at which other Deputies were present, that we should propose a multilateral conference on regional policy as part of the negotiations. This matter is of such importance to us, to existing members such as Italy, and to applicant members such as Norway and Britain, that we should get support for this conference. We should not agree to have this matter settled without a multilateral conference on regional policy.
Quite apart from looking for such a full discussion and ensuring that the package deal we sign will contain a commitment to an adequate regional policy, in our situation we must insist on a Protocol to the Treaty, guaranteeing us special treatment within the context of that regional policy. Italy got such a Protocol; it set out that special consideration must be given to the problems of Southern Italy in the application of the policy of the Treaty, for example, in respect of the European Investment Bank. This Protocol has proved to be of immense value to Italy; it has given that country the right to insist on getting such a large share of the European Investment Bank funds—Italy got more than half the total sum available. It has helped to a significant degree in achieving since 1960 that rapid growth in Southern Italy which demonstrates what can be done by a determined government.
They have achieved what we have not achieved—a catching up of the poorer areas of the country with the more prosperous areas. This has been done also in Belgium, Holland and Germany. If we are to ensure that this is done in Ireland we need an assurance that there will be a regional policy and we need a Protocol which will guarantee us special treatment within the framework of such a regional policy. I want to know from the Minister if this is part of our negotiating package. Has the Minister put forward to the Community our insistence that there must be an adequate regional policy before this matter is settled? We have had vague talk about minor details but on the important issues—economic and monetary union and regional policy—we have heard very little.
I have not time tonight to deal with the question of preparations beyond saying that I remain unhappy about the inadequacy of the preparations and the failure of the Government to communicate the necessary sense of urgency. It is the job of the Government to do this and I would remind them that they communicated this sense of urgency quite well nine years ago when we were considering entry into the Common Market. This failure is showing itself in the feeling of drift and complacency in industry.
The final point I wish to make arises out of something the Taoiseach said today. He referred to the agreement between Britain and France, their determination to maintain their identity, and he stated that we could be reassured about our identity. I think the Taoiseach missed the point. The question of being assured about one's identity is a matter about which other countries in the Community are concerned and they have made sure that they will maintain their identity. What Britain and France have agreed on is a programme under which they will not be bound by any supranational provisions and will, as far as possible, maintain their independence and their right to dominate, and if necessary exploit, other members of the Community. I do not like to hear from the Taoiseach the suggestion that we are to align ourselves with these two powers whose opposition to democratic supranational control within the Community is the one danger I foresee because the security of this country, as soon as we join the Community will depend on an adequate supranational control operated in a democratic manner. It seems to me that the overtones are inappropriate to a country of our size.
In the time available to me I may not be able to cover all the points raised during the debate today but I have notes that cover most of them. I should like to begin with the question raised in regard to our fishermen. Deputies have said that there is much discontent among the fishermen but I would like to tell Deputy FitzGerald that I have in my possession a letter from the chairman of the fishermen's association, representatives of which have been to Brussels. In his letter he thanks me for the work done at every level of the Community by our negotiating team and representatives in Brussels and thanks me also for the fact that when they got there they found a full appreciation on the part of the people in the Community of our needs in fisheries. To say in this House that we know nothing of what the fishermen want is going a little bit far from what is expected of somebody who is so well informed on these matters that people are inclined to accept his word. Such a person should have a special responsibility because it is difficult for everyone to inform himself on the Community. Therefore, those who are informed fully should do their best to be accurate because their word is likely to be accepted.
This is reflected again in the case of economic and monetary union. Of course, I understand the effects of economic and monetary union. I was the very first person in the negotiations to speak of the urgent need of a special regional policy to counter the effects on a peripheral nation like ours and other peripheral areas of an economic and monetary union. I was the first person to inject urgency on this matter.
Can the Minister give us a date for that?
I will let the Deputy have the dates. However, it does not matter. I did it.
The Minister said he was the first to do so.
An tAire.
The date was the 15th March but that does not matter.
This claim of being the first to do so is ridiculous. I shall not waste the Minister's time but he was not the first to do so.
I cannot argue with the Deputy if he will not accept what I say. I did this in Brussels and I spoke also in various parts of Ireland on this matter in an effort to inject a sense of urgency. When I did it at Killorglin it was like kicking a beehive. Everybody became upset because I asked them to get ready. I am not asking people to go into the Community now; rather, I am asking them to prepare for it. Preparing will not do them any harm but to stand back and say "We'll all be ruined, says Hanrahan" is no preparation for anything. It is not even a preparation for staying out.
Why do the Government not get ready?
One matter that seemed to upset people a lot was my reference to people not having a stake in the country. It was assumed immediately that everybody who is anxious and who expresses his anxiety and needs reassurance in so far as the European Communities are concerned came under that description.
From the national point of view I am disturbed at the prospect that this country would make the wrong decision. For that reason, and bearing in mind that those who are informed and speak authoritatively are accepted at their word, when alternatives are put forward that are not real alternatives and are accepted by the public to the extent of turning them against making a right decision, those doing that may not have a stake in the outcome. This, in no way, means that we do not want debate. Of course, we want debate and debate such as we have had today is good. If anybody should criticise an empty House here, I do not think anyone can criticise the speeches. Perhaps the House would take it from me that, before the next debate on this matter, I would like to structure the debate and to decide on the subject matters. If Members of the parties opposite wish to meet me privately with Members of my own party, this can be done and, consequently, the political overtones can be cut out — overtones that must come into a debate such as this. We can then get down to debating the real national interests.
We are not traitors then?
By no means.
Or unpatriotic?
Did I use either the word "traitor" or "unpatriotic"?
Yes, at Dublin Airport.
I was talking about people who put on a stage Irishman show. I was not talking about opposition to the EEC. I might say here that I am very proud to be Irish and if, when I am in a foreign city, others try to make fools of the rest of us, I do not like it. As I continue to study further the EEC the less anxiety I have concerning membership and the more attractive the prospect becomes in so far as our national interest is concerned. At the same time I appreciate that without full knowledge, in so far as knowledge can go in relation to anything in the future, people are entitled to be anxious and are entitled also, to be reassured.
In relation to the decision-making process, Deputy FitzGerald said that the whole power is with the Commission——
No.
——except the making of decisions. That is a very important part of the power of Government. The Deputy can have anything he wishes so long as I have the power of decision because it is in decision-making that power lies. There are two points of view within the Community in this regard. There are nations who would like the supranational institutions to develop and would have the Community so advanced that the interest of a population would be represented by, say, TDs in a European Parliament in proportion to the population of that area. I can see the reason for that point of view. If the Community were sufficiently well developed and established to the extent that the basic rights and protections for all areas, if you like to call countries areas, were made certain, representation in such a European Parliament for the populations of these separate areas would be the way to deal with their interests.
There is the other point of view where people have strong feelings on a national basis and still wish to control the evolution of the Communities at a speed that suits their national aspirations. There are such nations within the Community. They see a value in having control of the whole situation by the governments of the six member states. An enthusiasm for Europe and supranational institutions and the development of monetary union, a common external policy, if you like, exists with some members while other members would still like to control the rate and to have the growth of the Communities and the national interests balanced as well as the final decisions on European integration which perhaps would involve big national decisions by all the nations concerned. Each point of view has its own exponents and its own merits.
Which side are the Government on?
As far as I am concerned, I want to be where decisions are made. This should be our attitude also as a nation.
And to get away from 10 Downing Street?
Perhaps this is the first opportunity in our history for us to get away from domination, be it economic, political or otherwise. Points have been raised during the debate that are very useful to me and to the Government. I hope that some of the points made will inject a sense of urgency into everybody including every State Department in their preparation for membership of the Community. Perhaps there will be injected, too, a sense of urgency into making an assessment because the final decision cannot be made on the assumption that everything is all right. We shall have to make a balance. Last year in the White Paper we made, as far as the separate Departments could do it, an assessment of the likely impact of membership on different sections of our community. As far as it can be done we must put before the Dáil and Seanad and the people as clearly as we can the effects of membership. Getting back to the decision-making process this is something you must become accustomed to. When you are deciding you must decide between clear alternatives. It is not just a matter of staying as we are or going into the Communities with its various advantages and disadvantages. We shall have to make an assessment of what it would be like to remain outside the enlarged Communities.
When approximately would that assessment be made?
When will you make your decision on it?
No, when will we get the assessment on which to make the decision?
I think this should be ready before the Dáil debates the final package. I think it is a fair request.
But we will not be presented with it on the same day as we are presented with the terms?
But the Deputy will appreciate that if there was no question of the Common Market and you were asked to programme into the future there are areas there in which nobody can penetrate. There is a limit on what you can do.
I understand that but at least one would expect it from the Department of Industry and Commerce and Agriculture and Fisheries.
What is happening now is that I am getting away from my speech. Deputy FizGerald mentioned a protocol again on the basis that we were doing nothing. It makes me so sad to think that a man so well informed should suggest this. If I may quote from one of my speeches which was made to the Confederation of Irish Industries in the company of one of the commissioners, I think the House will appreciate at least that when you are negotiating there are political pressures at home to explain everything you do. At the same time you must time your proposals suitably and it is not always possible to reconcile the two things. Having said that I shall quote this statement and let him who runs read. If you want to use your brain you may do so; if not I cannot help you. I said:
I am confident that the necessary recognition of our special requirements will be forthcoming from the Community——
I have spoken of these special requirements; I think Deputy FitzGerald was almost reading my speech.
——Such recognition is by no means without precedent and is in harmony with one of the fundamental aims of the Communities which is to bring about harmonious economic development and to reduce the difference between various regions.
In fact, I did refer to the special arrangements made for Italy at the beginning of the formation of the Community.
A suitable ministerial circumlocution.
The message is there: you cannot always deliver it, hopping your shoe off the table. One of the difficulties in answering questions raised in the last few speeches is that it is hard to phase in. A sort of transitional arrangement is now necessary for me to get into what was the prepared answer to many of the points raised today.
It is a crucial debate; it comes at a decisive stage. The results of the British negotiations in the last few weeks and the meeting between the President of France and the British Prime Minister make it almost certain that the negotiations will now proceed to a successful conclusion. That is not to say that there is not a good deal of hard work, especially for us, left to be done but there were political obstacles to the successful conclusion of the British negotiations. They seem to have been surmounted and there is obviously a will and determination to conclude the negotiations by the end of this year.
It is true that in recent weeks the main focus was on the British negotiations, certainly on matters that were of major concern to Britain. I do not see how this can give pleasure to anybody. It is hardly worth saying but a Deputy who gloats over the fact that Britain seems to be more important than we are is not doing anyone a favour. The focus was on the British negotiations and that is likely to continue in the coming weeks. From the very beginning the problem posed for the Community by Britain's application for membership constituted the main potential stumbling block to the success of negotiations for the enlargement of the Community as a whole. While we are negotiating four separate treaties it can be taken that they must be dealt with by the Community as a whole. It has been recognised from the very beginning that progress on the major issues of concern to Britain would make it easier to find solutions for questions which Ireland, Denmark and Norway sought to have raised and achieve multilateral agreements on them.
There have been multilateral agreements on certain things, tariff quotas for instance. Perhaps bilaterally you could reach conclusions which would make it unnecessary to have multilateral agreements but I would not as Deputy FitzGerald said exclude such agreements altogether. We were told what the last agreement with the British on agricultural transition was but we were not asked to accept it. I take it the House would accept that the breakthrough in the British negotiations and the success of the meeting between President Pompidou and Mr. Heath is most welcome from the point of view of the successful conclusion of our own negotiations because those who have studied it say the weight of advantage lies in membership and anything that stops the possibility of membership would be a very depressing prospect for us.
The likely preoccupation will be with British negotiations in the coming weeks. They confidently expect to be able to resolve their problems before the summer recess in August. I recognise the desirability, from the viewpoint of the success of the negotiations as a whole, of continued and substantial progress in the British negotiations. Nevertheless, I should like to see our own negotiations progress as closely as possible in parallel with the British negotiations as they have done since the negotiations began. With that in mind I have requested an extra ministerial meeting in June. We are meeting on 7th June. Britain has a ministerial meeting on the afternoon of the 7th and a further one on 21st June. I have requested an additional meeting for Ireland as closely following the later British meeting as possible and I am confident this meeting can be arranged. I hope therefore that in meetings with the Communities before the summer it will be possible to make substantial progress on at least some of the matters arising on Ireland's negotiations.
It will be recognised by most people who study it that the present preoccupation of the Community with the major issues in the British negotiations as a whole will mean that a number of matters of special concern to Ireland which we have raised in the negotiations will not come up for substantive discussion until the autumn.
Could the Minister say what is our major issue or issues?
I will come to that if the Deputy gives me time. In the case of our negotiations and those of Britain and the other applicant countries the aim is to conclude them by the end of this year. We shall, therefore, be concerned in the coming months both before and after the summer recess with negotiating with the Community mutually acceptable terms of accession and solutions to the problems we have raised.
To those who feel that rapid progress in the British negotiations, while desirable for the negotiations as a whole, may preclude certain conclusions in our own negotiations, I would say that the settlement of some of the major problems in the British negotiations, perhaps in the coming weeks, will not serve to prevent us from working out with the Community solutions acceptable to us. I think it important that we understand that.
The essence of our negotiations is the working out with the Community of mutually satisfactory terms of accession in the form of arrangements which will enable this country to make a smooth adjustment to the obligations and privileges of membership. We want to become a member of the Community and in order to become a member we are required, and Deputy Corish should listen to this, as a sine qua non of negotiations, to accept the Treaties and the Community rules. The Community opened negotiations with all four applicant countries on the basis that we accepted the Treaties and the Community rules. We would be deluding ourselves if we thought we could insist that the Community change rules which have been in existence for years and say: “We will not join unless you change.” The options open to us are to join the Community as it is or not to join. We do not have the option to tell the Community to change in a way that would suit us.
I hope that does not apply to the fisheries policy.
No. What we are doing is negotiating satisfactory arrangements for the period of adjustment before taking full obligations of membership. I shall repeat here what the Taoiseach said in his speech today. It is true we have accepted the general principle that any problem arising from Ireland could be dealt with in the transitional arrangements but like the fisheries question there are particular problems which are special to Ireland. We have made it clear to the Community that in respect of these problems solutions which go beyond the scope of what the Community generally envisaged for transitional arrangements will be necessary. The groundwork for the decisive stage of the negotiations which lie ahead has been well laid. From the beginning we have had to make sure that just as we try to understand the Community, its various regulations and economy, the Community negotiators have a complete and detailed understanding of Ireland's position. A great deal of time and effort has gone into spelling out all the relevant facts about the implications of membership for Ireland and in formulating and presenting our case in respect of various problems which arise in connection with our application. A great deal of this has been technical work and has disappointed some people who like to see a sensation. I believe it is in the best interests of this country that we prepare the ground fully and do the job thoroughly. We have avoided looking for instant solutions to what are very complex questions which involve the welfare of our people, as Deputy FitzGerald said, for years to come. The Community have a thorough knowledge and appreciation of our requirements in making the transition.
From now on we shall be negotiating on these questions, we shall be defending our national interests in the negotiations and we shall be pressing for solutions which in themselves will command wide support throughout the country. Some people seem to think the Community is there to gobble us up but the Community want people to be fit for membership. They made an assessment of applicant countries and came to a decision on them. They do not want any country in the Community on its knees; they want members to stand on their feet. They have a vital interest in facilitating our economic development because the stronger we become the less likely we are to be a drag on the Community which is willing to accept us into membership and the more likely we can make our full contribution. This is what I referred to recently as the Community spirit. It would be totally contrary to the spirit of the Community, which is a spirit expressed in practice, for any one member's national interest to be damaged to the benefit of other member countries. Some people ask what are our major interests——
What are the major issues?
We believe that full participation by this country in the common agricultural policy will provide great opportunities for expansion of production and exports of major agricultural products. It will provide appreciable increases in farm incomes without even the expected expansion of production. What we are negotiating in regard to agriculture are the transitional arrangements which will apply while we are phasing in to the common agricultural policy. The general indications are that arrangements will be worked out which will be fully acceptable to our community here. The final details have not been settled.
With regard to the question of arrangements applying to the motor industry the Community have had, as the Taoiseach said, our proposals under examination and they have yet to give a reaction to them. I should like to make a point in relation to the car assembly industry and certain other matters. It is most important that the Community bear in mind fully the economic consequences that might arise here in an enlarged Community if arrangements which we at present operate, in the interests of creating and maintaining employment, are not recognised and provided for in the terms of our accession, at least until the economic sectors concerned have had an opportunity to adjust to the conditions of an enlarged Community. There is also the important question of export tax reliefs and the considerations I have just mentioned apply here as well. We shall pursue these questions most vigorously in our negotiations.
Two of my main preoccupations in the coming months will be fisheries and regional development. I have kept the House fully informed on developments in the negotiations in regard to fisheries. I have made available to Deputies the strong views presented to the Community on the problems which would be created for the livelihood of our fishermen and our fish stocks. As I have said before, it is a matter of vital concern to us and I have left the Community in no doubt about this. The time has come when we must explicitly request the Community to consider possible arrangements which will ensure that our particular interests in the fishery sector are recognised and protected so as to avoid the serious damage to our fisheries which uninhibited common access would give rise to.
Those who talk about putting up another proposal like the Norwegians have done should remember that we would like to see a reaction from the Community. If they accept the Norwegian proposal it would apply to the whole Community. I should like to see evidence from the Community on this common access provision that it is not committed to adhering too rigidly to this feature of the regulation. We shall seek arrangements which will afford necessary protection to enable our fisheries to survive and develop. In our view this will necessitate Ireland being in a position to operate certain fishery limitations on an exclusive basis because it is difficult otherwise to see how the necessary protection could be afforded to our fishermen and adequate provision made for the conservation of our fish stocks. I propose making a statement to the Community on fisheries at our meeting on 7th June.
The Minister appreciates that his time is up.
I have a number of points I would have answered but, as regards regional policy, in the sense of negotiating there is not a Community regional policy into which we would phase as we would into other Community policies but we believe we should have both the right and the freedom to apply our own regional policy. We believe, too, that the Community policy should be developed and I accept what the House says about seeking a commitment that there will be a Community regional policy. I regret I have not been able to cover all the points raised.
A Leas-Cheann Comhairle, may I, through you ask one question?
Questions are what made me fail to cover all points.
We were not trying to take the Minister's time. The Minister has had only half an hour and, despite the compliments the Minister has paid to the Opposition on their efforts, the debate has not been satisfactory. The offer by the Taoiseach was that we should have a debate for one day per week——
Per month.
——one day per month rather. That means that we will have only one more debate of six and a half hours——
The Deputy appreciates he cannot raise this on the adjournment of the House.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.35 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 2nd June, 1971.
