asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if he considers it to be in the national interest that members of the Government should not disclose details of contributions made by members of other Governments to meetings of the EEC Council of Ministers.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - EEC Council of Ministers.
132.
The provisional rules of procedure of the Council specify that the deliberations of the Council, that is, the official records of meetings, are covered by the obligation of professional secrecy, except as the Council decides otherwise. There is nothing to prevent Ministers from disclosing their own contributions, for example to their own Parliaments, and comment on other contributions is not unusual.
The Minister appears to have given us a summary of the Council protocol, but that is not what the question asked. The question asked did the Minister consider it to be in the national interest that members of the Government should not disclose details of the contributions made by members of other Governments. That is not the question to which the Minister replied.
As far as that goes, I think comment on other contributions by Ministers is not unusual and it would be frequently in the national interest to comment, particularly where contributions may seem to operate against the interests of the country.
The question related to disclosure, not comment. Would the Minister now reply to the question?
I think I have replied to the question. It relates to the question of contributions made by members of other Governments.
Disclosing.
Yes.
And the Minister has talked about comment, which is, as he appreciates, a different matter.
I do not appreciate it. It is difficult to comment on a contribution which has not been disclosed. What happens is, I think, that Ministers tell their own Parliaments what they have said and other Ministers then comment on that and put their own point of view and their gloss on the situation, especially if they feel that the interests of their country have not been served by the comments made by other Ministers.
Does the Minister appreciate that if a practice were to grow whereby Irish Ministers were to disclose in public the comments made by members of other governments in the EEC Council of Ministers, consequently the same thing would happen with regard to our Minister's contributions? Further, does the Minister not agree that not alone would this be a breach of the Luns Protocol to which the Minister has referred but it would not be in the national interest? That being so, would he explain to the House why the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries on an RTE news programme on Wednesday, 4th April, disclosed contributions by other Ministers in the EEC? I might add this question was put down to the Taoiseach.
I think the question of what the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries said on RTE is something he is better able to handle than I am——
The question was put down to the Taoiseach on principle; it was transferred by the Taoiseach to the Minister.
The question put to me asks a general guidance on the matter. The guidance has to be given here in a somewhat general form because this is a grey area and practice varies a good deal. At the recent meeting of the Ministers of Agriculture some remarkable things were said by Ministers about each other and were reported by them to the press, including in one case the opinion that a Minister seemed to be a bit off his head in what he said. There is a grey area here because the practice of disclosure varies a good deal. If there is a particular complaint the Deputy has about a particular Minister it would be better if he addressed it to him. The question does not say anything about the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries. All I can say is what the practice and guidelines are and these are adhered to by members of this Government.
The question was related to the Irish national interest and was addressed to the Taoiseach.