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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 10 Mar 1977

Vol. 297 No. 9

European Communities (Amendment) Bill, 1977: Second Stage.

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

The purpose of this Bill is to enable Ireland to ratify the Treaty Amending Certain Provisions of the Treaties Establishing the European Communities and of the Treaty Establishing a Single Council and a Single Commission of the European Communities. This new treaty which was signed in Brussels on behalf of Ireland by the Minister for Foreign Affairs on 22nd July, 1975, is, broadly speaking, designed to increase the powers of the European Parliament, or the Assembly, in respect of the Community budget. It also establishes a Communities' Court of Auditors which it is intended will exercise, although in a more effective manner, the powers and jurisdiction at present conferred on the Audit Board of the European Communities and on the Auditor of the European Coal and Steel Community.

The effect of the Bill, when enacted into law, will be to make this new treaty part of the domestic law of Ireland as from the date when it is ratified by all the member states. As Deputies will recall, the European Communities Act, 1972, enacted into Irish law all the existing treaties governing the Communities and it is logical that an amending treaty should be treated likewise. Accordingly, that Act has been amended by the insertion of this new treaty therein. In accordance with section 2 of the 1972 Act, this new treaty will then become part of the domestic law of the State under the conditions laid down in the treaties governing the European Communities. The Minister will have power to make regulations to give effect to the new treaty by virtue of section 3 of the 1972 Act. These will be subject to the annulment procedures contained in the European Communities (Amendment Act, 1973. These can be exercised on the recommendation of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities.

The Bill will come into force on the same date as the new treaty. It is provided that the Minister for Foreign Affairs must give notice in Iris Oifigiúil when this happens.

Under the original treaties establishing the European Communities— namely, the European Coal and Steel Community, the Eurioean Economic Community and Euratom—the European Parliament had very little control over the budget of the Communities. This situation was remedied to some extent by what is known as the Budget Treaty of 22nd April, 1970, which amended certain of the articles relating to the Community budget in the original treaties so as to increase the powers of the Parliament over the budget. These provisions remain in force today, having come into operation on 1st January, 1975.

At the time of the signing of the Budget Treaty in April, 1970—and this treaty is listed incidentally at section 1 (1) (f) of the European Communities Act, 1972—the European Parliament made it clear that it was not entirely satisfied with the new powers being granted to it. For this reason it was agreed that in due course the Commission would make further proposals in the matter for consideration by the Council.

On 8th June, 1973, the Commission submitted to the Council proposals for strengthening the budgetary powers of the European Parliament. These proposals were subsequently revised in the Parliament. The Council, after lengthy discussions and consultations with the Parliament, eventually agreed on a "package" of proposals on 4th June, 1974.

After the proposals, as agreed by the Council, had been drafted in appropriate treaty form and after the Parliament had been formally consulted, the Council, acting in accordance with Article 236 of the EEC Treaty and Article 209 of Euratom Treaty, delivered an Opinion on 22nd July, 1975 in favour of calling a Conference of Representatives of the Governments of the member states. The conference was duly held on the same day and the treaty signed.

As I mentioned earlier, the two main objectives of the new treaty are to increase the powers of the European Parliament over the budget of the Communities and to establish a European Court of Auditors.

Turning first to the powers of the European Parliament, the treaty specifically recognises the right of the Parliament to reject the budget in toto. Hitherto, there have been conflicting interpretations on whether or not Parliament has this right under the existing treaties. For its part the Parliament has traditionally held that its power to adopt the budget also implied its right not to adopt the budget, that is, to reject it. The Council's position has been that Parliament has the right to adopt the budget only but not to reject it. Ambiguity over this matter is being removed under Articles 2, 12 and 20 of the new treaty which lay down that, for important reasons and acting by a majority of its members and two-thirds of the votes cast, the European Parliament may reject the draft budget and request the submission to it of a new draft. In the event of the Parliament exercising the option of rejecting the draft budget outright, and if for this or other reasons the budget has not been adopted at the start of the financial year, it will be necessary to fall back on the system known as “provisional twelfths”. Under this system, if the budget is not adopted by the beginning of the financial year, a sum equivalent to not more than one-twelfth of the budget appropriations of the preceding financial year may be spent each month.

The new treaty also provides the Parliament with increased powers over "obligatory" expenditure. As Deputies will be aware, expenditure in the Community budget is broken down into "obligatory expenditure", that is expenditure necessarily resulting from the treaties or from acts adopted in accordance therewith, and other, expenditure known as "non-obligatory expenditure". The basic difference between these two forms of expenditure is that the Council has the final say over obligatory expenditure, which accounts for about three-quarters of the current budget of the Communities and includes such matters as the funds available under the CAP, while the Parliament has the final say over non-obligatory expenditure which includes moneys available for such matters as the social fund, staff and so on.

Under the existing treaties, the Parliament has a right to propose changes, known technically as modifications, to the figures for obligatory expenditure as established by the Council but unless these modifications are accepted by the Council acting by a qualified majority, that is 41 votes in favour, they are rejected. I might mention that in qualified majority voting, votes are weighted in accordance with the provisions of the treaties.

The new treaty will make the rejection of modifications by the Council more difficult where modifications do not increase the overall expenditure of an institution, that is in cases where a proposed increase in expenditure would be offset by a reduction elsewhere. In such cases modifications proposed by the Parliament will in future have to be rejected by a qualified majority, that is 41 votes out of 58, otherwise they will stand accepted. In all other cases, the existing arrangements whereby modifications proposed by the Parliament stand rejected unless adopted by a qualified majority, will continue.

In addition, the new treaty provides that the European Parliament alone, acting on the recommendation of the Council, will be able to give a discharge to the commission in respect of the implementation of the budget. This power of discharge which in effect amounts to a power to declare the accounts for the previous year finally and duly closed, is at present exercised jointly by the Council and the Parliament.

The treaty also obliges the Council to consult the Parliament, and obtain the opinion of the new Court of Auditors, before making financial regulations relating to the management of the budget. The financial regulations lay down the detailed rules for the implementation of the budget and of particular funds. At present the Council may make financial regulations without reference to either the Parliament or the Audit Board.

The provisions of the treaty that I have dealt with so far relate to the strengthening of the budgetary powers of the European Parliament. The treaty has also the aim of ensuring a more effective management of Community finances and to this end provides for the establishment of a new body aimed at reinforcing the financial audit of Community revenue and expenditure.

It is generally felt that the existing Audit Board of the European Communities has not been able to operate as effectively as might have been desired and this has prompted the Community to decide on the establishment of a new Court of Auditors. The deficiencies of the Audit Board in no way reflect on the members of the board who are all highly qualified and expert in their field, but are due rather to the fact that members do not have available to them the conditions in which to operate effectively. There are four basic reasons for this. First, the members of the Audit Board are part-time and their duties in their home countries as members of national audit authorities. Ministries of Finance and so on may not allow them all the time they might wish to carry out their functions effectively. With the proposed new Court of Auditors, the members will be full-time and indeed, under Articles 7, 15 and 23 of the new treaty, members of the court are specifically forbidden, during their term of office, from engaging in any other occupation, whether gainful or not.

The second difficulty for the existing Audit Board is that although they have the right to conduct an audit on the spot under Article 206 EEC, their right to do so in member states is not laid down specifically in the treaties. For a number of years, there was a marked reluctance by some of the member states—not, however, including Ireland—to allow the Audit Board to carry out audits in their territories and because of this divergence of view the Audit Board did not until 1975 succeed in arranging any audits of its own inside the member states. Prior to 1975 on-the-spot audits were confined to the institutions of the Communities.

Although there has been a marked improvement in the position since then, the present situation is regarded as unsatisfactory because the Audit Board cannot be expected to function effectively without being able freely to extend their operations, where appropriate, to the member states. This situation will be remedied under the new treaty where articles 8, 16 and 24 specifically provide that "The audit shall be based on records and if necessary performed on the spot in the institutions of the Communities and in member states". This provision, it is hoped, will bring about a significant improvement in the effectiveness of the Court of Auditors over the Audit Board.

A third difficulty is that although the Audit Board have, in practice, begun audits of accounts before the accounts for a particular year have been closed this power of the Audit Board was not specifically spelled out in the treaties. The new treaty will rectify this position and Articles 8, 16 and 24 explicitly provide that the "Auditing of expenditure shall be carried out before the closure of accounts for the financial year in question".

The fourth difficulty is that the existing Audit Board may not, in practice, have been able to obtain access to all the information they need. At a national level, as for example in the case of the Comptroller and Auditor General in Ireland, the office in charge of audit can ask for any information it needs and is given that information as a matter of right. The powers of the Audit Board in this regard were not spelled out in any detail in the existing treaties, the only reference being to the fact that the audit "shall be based on records". The new treaty, however, will change this situation. Articles 8, 16 and 24 state clearly that "That institutions of the Communities and the national audit offices or, if these do not have the necessary powers, the competent national departments shall forward to the Court of Auditors, at its request, any document or information necessary to carry out its task."

Finally, the creation of a single Court of Auditors will mean that from now on there will be only one audit authority in the European Communities and that the present duality in auditing procedures will be abolished. Under the existing treaties the Audit Board are responsible for auditing the accounts of all revenue and expenditure in the Community budget except for the non-administrative expenditure and revenue of the European Coal and Steel Community. The audit of this latter non-administrative expenditure and revenue is carried out by the Auditor of the ECSC. Under the new treaty all audits will be carried out by the new Court of Auditors.

Although the changes provided for in the new treaty are, we realise, somewhat technical they will, we believe, lead to some real improvement in the Community not only in terms of ensuring stricter controls over finance but also in recognising the growing importance of the role of the European Parliament in Community affairs. These are objectives which we feel sure the whole House can share. Indeed, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities have already welcomed the terms of the treaty in a report of 7th May, 1975.

The Government, for their part, are in full agreement with the terms of the new treaty which they welcome as a positive contribution to the development of a more democratic and efficient Community. For this reason the Government consider it desirable that the present Bill should become part of our domestic law at the earliest opportunity so that this country may proceed to take the necessary steps towards ratifying the new treaty and thus help to bring it into operation as soon as possible.

I commend the Bill to the House.

The Opposition also consider it desirable that this Bill should become part of our domestic law at the earliest opportunity, to quote the Parliamentary Secretary. The difference between us is that if the Government consider it so desirable they have a lot of explaining to do and a brief historical analysis of the attitude of the Government towards this Bill, which the Parliamentary Secretary has outlined in some detail, might not be inappropriate.

The Parliamentary Secretary correctly traced the history of the European Parliament in relation to budget control. He has indicated that to some extent this Bill introduces a new relationship between the Parliament, the Council and the Commission. To the extent that it increases the power of the Parliament obviously it is a major innovation in the European Community.

For this purpose the consultations that took place in 1974 within the Community with the Council, the Commission and the Parliament, were to increase the power of the Parliament in budgetary affairs and to establish the Court of Auditors, as proposed in this Bill. These consultations finally gave rise to a treaty which was signed by this Government, among others, in July, 1975. As the Parliamentary Secretary has noted, even before that, in May, 1975, the all-party committee of this House—of which I am a member—welcomed the provisions of the then proposed treaty draft and pointed out the desirability of implementing it. However, here we are almost two years later introducing legislation which the Parliamentary Secretary tells us the Government consider should be introduced into our domestic law at the earliest opportunity.

This is the earliest opportunity.

The Parliamentary Secretary has much explaining to do. The usual explanation that it involved detailed preparation by the parliamentary draftsman will not do. If ever there was a short, simple, precise Bill this is it. There are only two sections involved and they are purely formal —it is a matter simply of adding the title of the treaty of July, 1975, to the treaties referred to in the Act of 1972. A first-year law student in the Incorporated Law Society or at King's Inns could have drafted the Bill for the Government in five minutes flat, and I mean that. Therefore, it cannot be the usual problem of the parliamentary draftsman being under pressure of one kind or another. It is the simplest form of Bill to come before the House for a considerable time.

The only explanation must be that the Government did not look on the matter with the urgency they now say it warrants. If the Parliamentary Secretary has another explanation I should like to hear it. This treaty awaits ratification because we alone of the nine member states of the European Community have not as yet adopted and ratified it into our national law. Until we do that all the desirable things the Parliamentary Secretary has outlined, such as increasing the power of the Parliament and control by the Court of Audit— I welcome that and I will deal with it later—will have to be delayed because Ireland has not yet ratified it.

Article 30 of the treaty referred to states: "It shall enter into force on the first day of the month following the deposit of the instrument of ratification by the last member state". We have well and truly anchored ouselves into that position. This means this important Bill has to get a speedy passage through the House. It means, if we are to give effect to our concern, that I, as spokesman for the Opposition, have literally to limit my contribution to a very considerable extent on what would otherwise be a very lengthy debate. If I do not do that, we are delaying it further and further and the Parliamentary Secretary will tell us that there is other legislation. That is an unacceptable position to me and I am not the only one who feels this way. I asked a question in the House on the 15th December last. It is extraordinary that the president of the European Parliament was so concerned at the Government's failure to pass this Bill that he wrote to the Taoiseach—that must be a rather unprecedented step—on the 29th October last asking him to do all he could to get this Bill that we are now discussing almost six months later introduced. There was not a speedy response from the Taoiseach. The president of the European Parliament naturally communicated with his nearest senior colleague, the vice-president of the European Parliament, Senator Michael Yeats, who communicated with me and asked me to bring up this matter in the House so that this Bill would be introduced as quickly as possible. We now find that, even three months later, this Bill of great urgency is introduced. It is a very severe criticism of the Government, who are supposed to be concerned about the development of the European Community and are particularly committed to the role that parliament represents in that Community, that they have been able to sit on this for the past two years without shaking themselves into recognising its importance.

Why did the Deputy not raise it in Private Members' Business?

I listened to the Parliamentary Secretary. He will find that this Bill will have got through the House before 5 o'clock. If he is suggesting to me that the Government could not have arranged, over almost two years, one-and-a-quarter hours to have this done, it is some reflection on the way the Government order their business. It is no wonder the Parliamentary Secretary is being prompted to respond to the position of the president of the European Parliament. The more I listened to the Parliamentary Secretary outlining the provisions of this Bill the more I became convinced, while he showed how important the Bill is, that he was expressing the strongest possible condemnation of the Government's failure, for no good reason that I can understand, to introduce this very important measure that he has now asked us to introduce into our domestic law at the earliest opportunity.

That is almost two years after the treaty was originally signed and after the all-party committee, to which he referred, welcomed the provisions of this Bill. We should be consistent. We are the last member of the Community, dragging our feet, ensuring that the Court of Auditors particularly cannot be set up. We have done that for two years because we have not ratified this treaty. We are also ensuring that the parliament, to which we have expressed commitments from time to time, cannot formally get the increased budgetary powers that are required. This is because we, alone of all the nine, have, for some strange reason, refused to introduce this Bill of one section, which a first-year law student could draft for the Government.

I wait to hear the excuse for that. In the meantime this nation was embarrassed by having to wait until the president of the Parliament actually wrote to the Taoiseach and then to our Leader who passed it on to me asking: "Will you get something going there". This is extraordinary from a nation which talks about its European commitments.

What has happened in the meantime? Parliament could not wait to get this formal authority. They have on an informal agreed basis been exercising, without formal authority, the new budgetary powers that are proposed for them in this treaty. We can say that parliament has not been compromised because the new budgetary powers are already being exercised by them without the formal sanction of the treaty.

I noted the Parliamentary Secretary's detailed explanation of all the things that they can do and will do that have not been hitherto possible. They can do nothing because they cannot and will not be established until one month after the deposit of the instrument of ratification by the last member state, namely, Ireland. All the desirable things that they will do have to be held up. The Parliamentary Secretary referred to some of them. It is widely recognised that one of the problems within the Community is the investigation of fraudulent appropriation of Community funds by member states. This has meant a loss to the Community of very considerable sums of money.

The Parliamentary Secretary pointed out that the present audit provisions, without criticising the members of the board, is defective. One of the reasons, as he indicated, is that there is no provision for conducting an on-the-spot investigation in the country concerned. The present audit board is part-time. They cannot conduct an audit on the spot, which has been a very severe limitation on their inquiries into some of the problems of Community spending. Fraud is not the only problem here. This has to wait until the slow reluctant member of the Community, the Paddy Last, Ireland, can spare one hour or one-and-a-half hours to pass this Bill. I have heard of some strange anomalies in our attitude to the Community but this one passes anything I have met. We might have spent two hours on it but now we will have to confine it to one-and-a-half hours because of the urgency the Parliamentary Secretary spoke about.

If the Deputy has not got enough time to say his piece on this, we are prepared to leave it over.

I agree. I will have most of it said but there may be other Deputies who will want to contribute. I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary will acknowledge that there is important business next week, so important that the Minister for Industry and Commerce has to have it then. There will be other important business the following week and somebody else has to have it as well. I will not be the person who delays one step further our ratification of this treaty. I suppose the Government will sit on St. Patrick's Day at this stage but they could not find one hour for this over the past two years.

The Deputy knows that is not the reason. He hopes that somebody will run away with that false idea without waiting for me to say anything.

I will allow the Parliamentary Secretary the opportunity to give the explanation.

As far as we are concerned, the Deputy can speak until 5 o'clock and finish the next day.

I can assure the Parliamentary Secretary that he will have ample opportunity to explain the reasons. I would not make the charges without wanting to hear from him. I will listen with interest for the Parliamentary Secretary's excuses. What has been lost by our delay? The treaty has not come into force. The increased budgetary powers of the European Parliament have not been implemented and the Court of Auditors have not been established. As the Parliamentary Secretary has recognised, the Court of Auditors cannot conduct an on-the-spot investigation in any member state within the European Community. Those are all very desirable things but still they wait. The delay has not been caused by a question of money. We have an explanatory memorandum, which is a very precise document as one would expect for such a precise little Bill. It says in the final paragraph:

Adoption of the Bill is unlikely to involve any charge on the Exchequer.

Another excuse goes out the window. It cannot be because of financial difficulties that we had to wait for two years. The Parliamentary Secretary might explain that as well.

How could we possibly justify a delay in introducing it? That is the first thing that has to be cleared up, because we already have shown ourselves less committed, less effective members of the Community by the disability—and I mean disability— which we have imposed by our delay in regard to the European Parliament and the Court of Auditors, and by our reluctance to support the new developments within the Community which generally means strengthening the role of Parliament and, to a certain extent, a diminution of the absolute independence of the Council vis-à-vis Parliament.

Incidentally, the role of the European Parliament in all of this is important, as the Parliamentary Secretary has acknowledged, because the explanatory memorandum also says this will strengthen the powers of the European Parliament. If we want to get a truly representative Europe, if we want to get a Europe which has real meaning for the people, then it must be a strong, representative European Parliament. This Bill is intended to do that. We who have been saying so much about strengthening the Parliament have been doing so little about acting on our own terms.

Summarising it as far as the powers of the Parliament are concerned, the Parliament has been accorded the explicit right of rejecting the draft Community budget as a whole and asking for a new draft to be submitted to it. I agree with the Parliamentary Secretary that there has been some difference of opinion as to what the powers of the Parliament up to this have been. Now for the first time they have been given this explicit right of rejecting the Community budget as a whole. The important thing is that even within the Parliament the treaty provides that to effect that right the Parliament must pass a decision by a majority of the Members of the European Parliament, and there is a very strong qualification as to how the Parliament's view would be expressed. It can only be expressed by a majority of its Members but by two thirds, in addition, of those voting. This will mean that if the Parliament is to give effect to this new budgetary power, it will need to have very solid support, indeed, among its Members.

That brings us to the whole question of the role of the Parliament and what kind of Parliament it will be, and what Ireland's position within that Parliament will be. This last week has been a very interesting one in regard to the European Parliament. Ireland's place in the European Parliament has been highlighted very significantly within this last week for a number of reasons. One of the reasons is the fact that a nominee who is a member of our party and who has earned much distinction in the European Parliament as Vice President, namely, Senator Michael Yeats, did exceptionally well to be defeated in such a narrow vote for the top position in that Parliament, by 87 votes to 77, being defeated for the position by a former Prime Minister of Italy, Signore Colombo.

Let us look at the support Signore Colombo got and the support which Senator Yeats did not get, and let us look at the consequences of this for Ireland's representation in the Parliament which is strengthened by this Bill. Signore Colombo, Christian Democrat, had the support in the final count of communist members of the European Parliament from his own native country. Some communist members from Italy abstained but other communist members from Italy voted for their own national who is totally opposed for what they stand for. If in the Italian scene the communists can vote for the christian democrat, it might not have been too much to ask the Fine Gael members of the European Parliament to vote for a Fianna Fáil nominee.

I thought the Deputy was one of the greatest Europeans in the House.

I am as good a European as the Parliamentary Secretary, if not better, but I want to show how small-minded the Government are in this matter. The Italian communists voted for an Italian christian democrat while Fine Gael show a miserable, selfish attitude by opposing the Fianna Fáil nominee, a man of real standing in the Community and in the Parliament. Had Fine Gael voted for Senator Michael Yeats he would now undoubtedly be the President of the European Parliament.

How does the Deputy make that out?

He lost by eight votes. If the three Fine Gael votes had turned to vote for the member from their own nation, as the communists were able to do in regard to the christian democrat, despite the big gap between them, I would have presumed that, whatever Fine Gael thought of Fianna Fáil, they hardly think much worse of them than the communists do of the christian democrats. That would make a gap of two, and we have very good reasons to know that if Fine Gael had supported Senator Yeats, Senator Yeats would have got at least one vote—that is all that was needed— from their christian democrat colleagues. The thanks for the defeat of Senator Yeats in the election for the Presidency of the Parliament is due entirely to the Fine Gael Party.

If that is the position Ireland is going to take up in the European Parliament, it does not augur well, but I would like to mention that by contrast the Labour Party, and Deputy Thornley, in particular, took a different view. They said, "if the socialists and the communists are prepared to support a man to whom they are totally opposed ideologically, we can support Senator Yeats", and Deputy Thornley, at all stages of the count voted for the Fianna Fáil nominee.

I give that as an example of the kind of attitude this Government are presenting in Europe. When we have a man of real standing to uphold the principles for which we stand in that Parliament, it is regrettable that the reason he does not get that honour is that three of his own countrymen— and I wish one of them would come in here and justify it—decide to reject him, not because he was not fit but because they were not fit to recognise what he represents, and adopted this small-minded attitude or, perhaps, they were acting on an instruction they got from home. That is a second contradiction which this Government have to explain in relation to their attitude towards Europe and the European Parliament.

It is particularly important that we as a small nation would play a prominent role in that Parliament. It is not a question of any particular person in a particular position doing anything untoward or improper but of occupying a position with status and authority, an authority which Ireland so vitally needs there now. Within the Community at the moment what one can loosely call the consumer lobby or the industrial nations, the major powers, are becoming more and more influential within the Parliament simply by force of numbers at the expense of producer countries such as Ireland who through lack of numbers are becoming less influential.

That has become a fact of life in Europe since the accession of Britain and Denmark and because of the influence of Germany, France and Holland. The consumer industrial lobby within the European Parliament has become stronger, and I will have more to say on this in a moment. The producer lobby has become weaker, and if ever we needed a representative from our country to express that, even in status as distinct from undue influence, it was this last week and from now on. It has been very obvious to anyone who has attended as an observer of the European Parliament recently that that trend is developing. Yet, for some mean and miserable reason Fine Gael did not find themselves able to support a man who would express that view.

Let us consider some figures in order to get an idea of the kind of Europe we are talking of. A breakdown of population figures is very revealing in this sense. We find that more than 80 per cent of the German population are living in urban areas of more than 20,000. The figure is similar in respect of the UK and Denmark. Obviously the industrial interests of these countries will be represented very strongly in the Parliament. In Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg more than 70 per cent of the population live in urban areas that have populations of more than 20,000. Therefore, we are thinking in terms of a Community which is basically an industrialised urban Community, a situation that must be reflected in the representation in Parliament. Only Italy and ourselves have about 50 per cent of the population living in towns or cities with populations of more than 20,000. Consequently, it is of vital importance that the interest represented by Ireland as an element in Europe be promoted and supported. It is in that context I say that what Fine Gael did this week in the European Parliament was a disservice not only to Ireland but to the entire development of the Parliament.

Is the Deputy making the point that every country should act on its own? I understood that the Community meant the transcending of national boundaries. What the Deputy is saying is more appropriate to a county council.

I could not care less for Senator Yeats' own sake. If the nominee were a member of the other side and if he had the status and standing of Senator Yeats, I would support him and would have him supported from this side of the House.

I accept that the Deputy would be generous enough to do that but he has a wrong view of what the Parliament is about.

The conduct of the Government in regard to the delay in introducing this Bill shows who has the wrong idea. In relation to the need for a Parliament that is concerned and determined regarding the implementation of the proposals of the Community, let us consider the draft budget for this year alone. It stands at 8,646,000 units of account while for last year the comparative figure was 8,471,000 units of account. When we subtract from the draft budget the administrative costs which have increased considerably and which are provided for we find that already the budget of the Community in the areas with which we would be concerned most and with which the Community have expressed themselves to be concerned most, is less in real terms in 1977 than it was in 1976. This is the Community that is committed to the elimination of regional imbalances and to making the Community area a better place for all to live in, not only in terms of cities but in giving meaning to the peripheries of the Community where there are real cultural and social values. Yet that Community have cut back in this year's budget. In order to reject such a budget the Parliament must be concerned and determined to implement the stated aims of the Community. That is why every opportunity that becomes available to us should be taken advantage of in order to express our views in the strongest manner possible.

Even the trend of voting on budgetary matters in the Parliament within the past few months indicate that the consumer lobby from the industrial nations is growing continuously stronger at the expense of the producer lobby, if the latter can be regarded as a lobby at all. This will be one of the main issues in the development of Europe during the next few years. In expressing our commitment to and our support for a strengthening of the European Parliament we must not allow ourselves to be blindfolded to the reality that the Parliament we are supporting in respect of greater powers may be an expression of an undermining of the very essence of the Community programme for the development of the peripheral regions unless those who represent the central areas—the prosperous centre—are prepared to express their concern for the peripheral regions. That is why our representation in the Parliament must have status and persuasion and, above all, must represent a united view irrespective of groupings because if we cannot speak with one voice in the Parliament, we cannot expect others to heed our views. Therefore, we must avoid divided views.

Although what Ireland has received by way of FEOGA grants is considerable we find from the latest report, that of October, 1976, that the amounts which have been transferred under the main elements have fallen. In 1975 there was a net transfer of £102 million under the FEOGA guarantee section but in the first nine months of 1976 that had fallen to £69,500,000. Under the guidance section the figure fell in a full year from £25 million to £1,750,000 in nine months. Unfortunately there has been a decrease, too, under all the other heads—the social fund, the regional fund and so on.

Let us consider the social action programmes overall in the Community. In 1977 there is provision in the budget for 172 million units of account whereas the corresponding figure for 1976 was 440 million. This is a steep fall-off. The social fund is an essential element within the Community's proposals in terms of implementing their stated programmes. There is provision in the 1977 draft budget for what are referred to as commitment appropriations. This amounts to 578 million units of account. These are simply commitments to do something during the next few years as a result of the continuing nature of the proposals for programmes under the social fund. In this year the extent of the provision is 172 million units of account.

It will be seen, then, that there is a great need for vigilance and that it is necessary to remind the Community that they must be true to their stated aims. Otherwise what will develop will be a strengthening of the centre at the expense of the peripheral regions. To some extent that process is under way. It is for the Parliament, with its increased powers, to ensure that that process is checked.

In that connection it is vitally important that the stages for the direct elections to the European Parliament be introduced as quickly as possible. Here in Ireland there is no sign of any sense of urgency in this regard but there may be greater justification for the delay in announcing the procedures for election. None of us in politics can claim to be totally pure but let us refer to the drawing of constituency boundaries in terms of what that exercise represents. It is a fix. The boundaries are in no way related to consistent characteristics. The Minister for Local Government smiles and the more he smiles the more one knows that something insidious is hidden behind his proposals. If we are to have a truly representative European Parliament, the Minister for Local Government could have done better than to have introduced the kind of constituencies which he did introduce. I wish that sometimes I could volunteer to object to what is being done in the name of this country, so that someone over there could say that what is being done by that Minister in the name of fair representation is a disgrace. The Minister has introduced constituencies such as that stretching from Donegal to Offaly as homogeneous constituencies. This Bill is an amendment to the Bill by which we became members of the European Community and it gives powers to the European Parliament. We are entitled to discuss the nature of the elections we will have to the Parliament which will exercise these powers.

I hope the Deputy will leave me plenty of time to reply to this.

I will. Any Minister who can introduce constituencies that comprise areas as unrelated to each other as County Dublin, much of which is comprised of built-up suburban areas, parts of Louth, Wicklow and Kildare, shows no concern for the European Parliament. It saddens me to think that they can then present themselves as being concerned for direct elections. When the time comes anybody could present a more reasonable outline of constituencies, allowing that we all like to give the advantage to each other.

Not to each other. We like to keep it to ourselves.

To ourselves, of course. Here we have a situation where once again we are undermining the European Parliament and all it represents by the attitude of a Minister who has a very small mind, or who is too cute. Perhaps the Minister wants to check the balance that Fianna Fáil have exercised over the years and he is so determined to do that that he will sweep anything aside, even our representation in Europe. When Fianna Fáil come back it will not be done that way and the commission about which we spoke will be introduced unless we can get agreement here on what is a fair and proper way to do it.

The last discussion we had in this House on the European Community was on 27th February, 1975. On that occasion we discussed the third and fourth reports on Developments in the European Community. Since that time we have had a fifth, sixth and seventh report, and now the eighth report, going up to October, 1976. Under the European Communities Bill we must have these reports before us twice a year. The fourth report was published in December, 1974, and I presume the third one was published some time around March of the same year.

It was due to pressure of work, as the Deputy knows. If the Deputy's party had not wasted time in 1975 we could have discussed 50 such reports.

When it comes to pressure of work, we often have to listen to a Minister from the Parliamentary Secretary's benches talking for hours and hours about the meaning of one word.

The Deputy should keep to the Bill before the House.

It seems a pity that we have not had a discussion on our involvement in the European Community since February, 1975. It seems a pity that the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth reports of the European Community have not been discussed. It is a pity that we have not been able to analyse our role within that Community at Parliament level, Council level and Commission level. For that reason I make a passing reference to it today.

In relation to Europe generally since we joined, it has become a Community where the centre is dominating the periphery. This Parliament to whom we are giving these powers, will have to check that development. It has become a Community where the disparity between the gross domestic product in the richest regions, Hamburg for example, and the poorest regions, such as the west of Ireland, has increased from five times to almost seven times. This pattern has also been reflected between the centre and the periphery in the south of Italy. This Parliament which is getting these increased budgetary powers will have to play a very important role in correcting that development. The Council, in the allocation of the funds, have been more concerned with the vindication of their national interests. That is perhaps understandable, but they should not call themselves members of the Community and say they are acting in Community interests. Where is this Community going? There is no point in us talking about treaties, instruments and ratifications. The European Community is a great Community for terminology, procedures, instruments and all kinds of documentation, but unless there is a central will there is no Community. The Parliament can be given the extra powers to reject the budget or to give a discharge to the Commission in respect of the implementation of the budget, or to consult between the Parliament and the Council so that from now on the Parliament through its deputation will have the right to consult with the Council on the financial management of the Community budget.

All of these are desirable but they do not matter unless there is concern. All the procedures and provisions in the world and all the strengthening of the powers of the European Community, do not matter unless there is an awareness within the Parliament, the Council, and the Commission of the sort of Community we will have, and the values which it will maintain and develop. That awareness has been sadly lacking. The Parliament, if its power is to be effectively expressed to realise the aims of the Community should ensure that the commitments of the Community expressed as long ago as the time of the Rome Treaty, within the Paris Summit and elsewhere will be implemented through the social fund, the regional fund and also through the strengthening of obligatory spending under the common agricultural policy.

We must consider that there are people within the Community, in Italy, and some in our own country, who live in a totally different world. Some of them have been displaced from the south of Italy and have had to go to live and work in Germany. I think it is fair to say that they have been propelled in one move from the Middle Ages and the customs, social and otherwise, of that period to the highly industrialised activities of German cities. What is being done about this? These poor wretches from Calabria and the heel of Italy can be "turfed" around. Are we concerned about the magnificent cultural and social traditions which they have had since the days of the Roman Empire? These should be strengthened and promoted and encouraged. The same is true of the west of Ireland. Surely the values of a rural people living close to the ocean are worthwhile, not only for Ireland but for the community as a whole?

Everyone agrees with the Deputy about that but it is not practical to talk in this way.

Take a factory like the BMW works in Munich which we visited recently with the President. Almost half of the workers there are foreigners. If the foreigners went home that factory would have to close down.

I am not saying that we can avoid having migrant labour. I am saying that it is practicable for the Community which has such immense resources to give commitments, which hopefully the Parliament will act upon, for development through the regional and social funds. Otherwise we will have more and more cities like Hamburg, Bremen, Bremerhaven or Stuttgart which will be visited by people like ourselves and there will be less people around the perimeter of the Community.

The west of Ireland has done very well from the EEC.

The Chair fails to understand the lines along which the debate is developing.

Is it forbidden to express some basic philosophical notion of what the Community represents? We are talking about an amendment to the Bill which brought us into the European Community. The Bill which made us a member of the Community is the European Communities Bill. Today we are talking about the European Communities (Amendment) Bill. Is the Chair telling me that I cannot even question the basic philosophy of the European Community?

The Chair is saying that we appear to be somewhat removed from the Bill before the House.

The Bill is brief in its format but very deep in its ramifications and the consequences may be wide ranging. Forgive me, with due respect to the consistency and fairness of your rulings, if I seemed to express impatience. It is impatience with the way we have accepted so much from the Community. This treaty is great but it must be backed up by action and philosophy or it will mean nothing.

We have had a situation where the growth rate at the centre of the Community—I trust the Chair will accept this as relevant because we are talking about the budgetary powers of the European Parliament—has been achieved at the expense of the periphery. This has been quite obvious and I do not see that we should stand back and blandly accept that it is inevitable that Germany and Holland will become richer and Italy and Ireland will become poorer. As a group we have become richer and many problems throughout the rest of the world in which we should have been showing an interest have become more acute. That is not the kind of Community that we would enthusiastically embrace. I say this as a convinced European. These questions have to be asked and must be answered. I would hope that the Parliament in the exercise of its budgetary powers which we are discussing this afternoon would see just that. If the Council will not be consistent with its own stated aims, it should be made to recognise it. If the Commission will not be consistent with its own stated aims, it must be made to recognise it. It must not be allowed to escape in a waffle of words and documents and instruments which pour out at a great rate from the various agencies of the Commission. Let us bring some reality to this, a reality of concern, of culture and of happiness which I would think is a lot deeper in the peripheral areas than at the prosperous centre of some of the cities I have been talking about.

I am glad that the Parliament has generally supported the enlargement of the Community. We will have a better balance. Is it a coincidence that a country such as Greece is poor but has such a deep cultural sense of history and otherwise? I am thinking of Greece, Spain, and Portugal. Sometimes it seems almost strange that the awareness of the real values seems to be in inverse proportion to the degree of prosperity in an area. I want to see a more realistic and balanced European Parliament which will be concerned about the peripheral areas which are suffering at the moment at the expense of the centre. The regional policy must be an element in that and I would hope that this Parliament would reject under these new powers any budget proposed by the Council, after having the opportunity of consulting with them under this treaty established in 1975, which will not contain a real element of regional policy. Certainly it is not there at the moment.

The budget for the regional development programme, having regard to the imbalances within the Community, is inconsistent with what they pretend to support. It is more than that—it is ludicrous. Far from eliminating regional imbalances it does not even maintain the status quo. The peripheral regions are falling behind at a greater rate. What price regional policy? Is regional policy meant to eliminate imbalances or meant to ensure that instead of being seven times worse off they will not be eight or nine times worse off. I know there are practical political problems involved in this but there must be a consistency in the expression of the European view, especially from a country such as ours. It must be stated that a cutback in the regional fund goes in the teeth of the stated principles of the Community and will ensure that these imbalances will be maintained and aggravated.

That brings me to my final point and it is also relevant. That is the fishery question. I will not go into this in detail but just in outline. Here we have a peripheral region, the west of Ireland, that would benefit to a very considerable extent from simply being allowed to exploit the natural resources off our coasts and this is being prevented by the Community. They say that we must protect the traditional fishing fleets, many of which come from very prosperous nations. I know the Minister and the Parliamentary Secretary will say "We agree but the reality is that is the view they take". Perhaps that is true. We have to remind them more and more that, in taking that view, they are not helping the regions by contributing anything extra and they are depriving the regions of the opportunity to exploit the little natural resources they have. To a certain extent the centre has been discommoded— and that is not too strong a word to use—but by new developments in the International Law of the Sea, the centre will maintain its strength in Holland, Belgium, Denmark or somewhere else. It is a sad reflection on the Community that they should take that view. We may be said to be the selfish ones. Perhaps we are.

1972 was the time to say all this.

Not again. The Minister is a man of many words. Do not draw me out on that. I hope to see him back in the House very shortly. I asked him did he utter even one whimper or one whisper on this. He cannot be accused of being silent. Not even once in 1972 did he whisper: "Be careful because perhaps a new regime will be coming in later"? Not even that Minister who has been heard so often opened his mouth. Why not? Because it was not an issue then. There was no economic zone then. This Government will have to face that fact with honesty. I am tired of hearing that yarn. I respect no man's honesty more than that of the Parliamentary Secretary. I do not want to embarrass him about it. Sometimes I would accuse him of blatant honesty but I will not listen to it even from him. He knows as well as I know that was not an issue in 1972. Because the economic zone has become an issue since, new advantages have accrued. Let us not get involved in that debate.

The Community must be true to themselves and say to us in accordance with the Treaty of Accession: "We will have a survey done which will check the social and economic development of the coastal regions." They obliged themselves to do that under the Treaty of Accession, before introducing a new regime. They have not done it. They are in the difficult position that they have to respond to what sometimes seem to be unreasonable national demands. It is easier for us to look for 50 miles than it is for the Government. I accept that. Having said that, the Government are going the wrong way about it. They introduced impossible conservation measures. They are now talking in terms of impossible, unworkable quotas which I do not think will ever be accepted. As such, quotas do not work despite promises that everyone will register and stamp the fish "Caught in France" or "Caught in Ireland".

Fianna Fáil in Government will succeed in getting that band and the fishermen and the public will be satisfied. I bet we will succeed. Within that band we will accept licensing arrangements for specified areas for traditional fishing fleets. The result will be: (a) we will not have to go out and board ships because they will be fishing within their own zones under licensing arrangements sanctioned by us which the fishermen accept; (b) we will not have the problem or cost of patrolling these areas; and (c) each year our development potential as an island will be able to be monitored. In each year we will be able to say: "Those licensing arrangements were or were not satisfactory and we will adjust them a bit."

That is not too much to ask from the Community. Nor is it beyond the wit of negotiators to present it on that basis in dealing with a Commission who have a great grasp of the whole matter. This will be acceptable to the fishermen because they know that if we had it all to ourselves we could not supply from the coastal band the consumer market of Europe. We can not act the dog in the manger. Having that coastal band, we can make licensing arrangements to ensure that the market will be supplied by the fishing fleets, and equally to ensure that our development and the development of our fishing industry will be protected. That is vitally important. We have a Minister who literally jumps in——

I know the Deputy means well but that suggestion is the equivalent of Document No. 2 dealing with fisheries. What is the difference between a 50-mile band into which you let the world and his wife and a 12-mile band from which all others are excluded if they cannot be controlled?

I did not say that.

What is the difference between licences and quotas if neither can be effectively controlled?

There is a big difference. This is why the fishermen find it acceptable: quotas depend on quantifying and measuring the amount of fish caught and people presenting their fish and saying: "That is what we caught. That is our quota. We have exceeded it or we have not".

That has to be supervised.

Licensing does not depend on counting anything. It just provides that within such an area the French may fish and it can be an extensive area.

It requires to be supervised ship by ship.

Not ship by ship to the extent conservation would involve.

The Chair has allowed latitude but wants to point out to the Parliamentary Secretary and Deputy O'Kennedy that Members of the House should address themselves to the narrow terms of the Bill before them.

It is a Bill amending the European Communities Act, 1972, under which we became a member of the Community.

The Principal Act is not affected.

I promised the Parliamentary Secretary——

The Chair wants to be sure its own ruling is not wrong. There are two distinct matters before the House, two main effects, strengthening the powers of the European Parliament over the budget, and establishing a Court of Auditors.

Is not the purpose of this Bill to amend the European Communities Act, 1972, under which we became a member of the European Community?

In debating a Bill to amend an Act the provisions of the Principal Act not affected by the Bill may not be debated.

The provisions of the Principal Act are affected. We will succeed in doing what I said. Perhaps I have more respect for Document No. 2 than the Parliamentary Secretary. The Government should have a close look at what we said.

This Treaty which we are now giving effect to, and the increased powers of the Parliament which we are now belatedly supporting, will be meaningless unless there is a commitment from the Commission and the Council to honour their obligations. I have tried to illustrate that that commitment is not as clear to me as it should be. I hope a little straight talking will encourage them to honour them. I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will have an opportunity of explaining the two years delay and other aspects in the time at his disposal.

I should like to thank Deputy O'Kennedy for the couple of kind things he said in the course of his speech. I hope he will not mind if I do not quite stick to the single question to which I know he would like to confine me. In fairness I must be given a chance, however briefly, to deal with some of the matters Deputy O'Kennedy succeeded in making appear relevant. The powers of the European Parliament are being extended. I agree with everything the Deputy said about the potential importance of the budgetary power of the Parliament in enforcing greater regard for the periphery of the Community.

Deputy O'Kennedy felt solidarity should have been shown by my party in the election of Senator Yeats. I sat in the Seanad for the better part of four years under the chairmanship of Senator Yeats and I thought him an excellent chairman. I say that unaffectedly. I would be glad to see him advanced in the European context but not at the expense of sacrificing what I take to be the point of the European Parliament. What is the sense of having groups corresponding to large political directions unless people sink their national differences and adhere to these groups? We have all been put to a great deal of trouble and the Community has been put to a great deal of expense in setting up a Christian Democratic Group, a Socialist group, a Liberal group, a Gaullist group and a Communist group and whatever other groups there may be if they are not to mean anything. I shall not say any more about this except that I think Deputy O'Kennedy showed a lamentable lapse from his ordinarily high-minded acceptance of the European idea in supposing that Deputies McDonald, Creed and L'Estrange should have trooped over to Strasbourg, abandoned for the day their party allegiance over there and trooped into the lobby with the rag, tag and bob-tail of the Gaullists and——

It is not party allegiance.

Group allegiance—and the chaps from Denmark who do not believe in paying income tax and whatever other flat-earthers there are in the Fianna Fáil group in order to elect Senator Michael Yeats.

If that is rag, tag and bobtail how do you regard Liberals, Communists and Christian Democrats——

No, it is the group to which Fianna Fáil are affiliated or associated. I only observe that it consists of the Gaullists whose policies and philosophy, although policies clear to a Frenchman are not explicable in Irish terms, and a Danish party, the principal plank in whose platform is the abolition of income tax. I say to Deputy O'Kennedy in all friendship that the reason his party is in that gallaird is that they could not find it in themselves to join where they naturally belong, either the Liberal group—because they are all great believers in private enterprise—or more naturally—I hope I do not run into criticism from my own side for saying this—the Christian Democrat group. There might have been a historic development in Irish politics had Fianna Fáil had the grace to admit——

Would the Parliamentary Secretary define the policy of the Christian Democrats?

I am not called on to define any policy. I merely observe that these groups exist and that the only one which cannot be explained in Irish terms, which has no precedent, no fellow, no equivalent in Irish terms is the very one for which Fianna Fáil made a beeline because they could not identify with the Socialists as that would offend their moneyed supporters and they could not identify with the Christian Democrats either although, in fact I am certain that you could not put a knife between the position on the European plane of the great Christian Democrats of the forties and fifties, de Gasperi, Adenauer and the others and the things for which the great men of the Fianna Fáil Party have stood. I do not mean to be offensive in saying that.

Are they the only groups in the European Parliament?

They are not, but they are the only reasonable options——

Why not mention all of them?

This discussion got off to an accusation of small mindedness on the part of Deputy O'Kennedy in regard to the election of Senator Yeats. I wish Senator Yeats very well personally and professionally. He was an excellent Chairman of the Seanad in my recollection and I hope I will eventually see him promoted even further on the European plane.

Soft words.

It is not a question of small mindedness if the Fine Gael members have stuck to their European party grouping.

Is it not a party?

The greatest small mindedness I can remember in regard to European group affiliation was that committed by the entire Fianna Fáil Party in turning their back on what would have been in my opinion a much more natural alliance for them had they found it in them to throw in their lot with the Christian Democrats which Fine Gael have joined. An historic development might have been unfolded even in this country.

(Interruptions.)

The Parliamentary Secretary without interruption.

The Deputy found it possible to move on from that to the question of constituencies and he invited the House to hold in ridicule a constituency for the European Parliament which would stretch from Donegal to Offaly. I presume the Deputy would accept the principle of proportional representation on the Irish model for the election for this parliament. I assume he would not regard that as contentious. If we have that we must have constituencies with at least three seats because you cannot achieve proper proportionality otherwise. Any constituency involving any part of the western seaboard, where we have only 16 seats altogether, would be immense by contrast with ordinary Dáil constituencies. If it is a thinly populated seaboard perhaps a three-seat instead of a four-seater there might not have stretched from Donegal to Offaly but it certainly would have stretched from Donegal to some part of the Midlands not normally associated with it. It could not be organised otherwise.

I cannot see why there is all this mewling and whining about these constituencies. I challenged Deputy Lynch when he went over the top on the day when they were announced and said it was a blatant piece of gerrymandering and I asked what would happen in these constituencies. Very likely, unless there is a revolutionary change and Deputy O'Kennedy's party falls into gross disfavour or mine does, or the Labour Party does, it looks as though it will work out like this: the two four-seaters will have two seats all, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil; the five-seat constituency looks as it will probably go three—two in favour of Fianna Fáil. In regard to the minority two, perhaps one Fine Gael and one Labour might be a reasonable guess. A non-committed observer might guess that it will go that way. That leaves the eastern Leinster constituency as the cockpit in which the overall ascendency will be decided. What is so dreadful about that? Where is the gerrymandering? It seems to me that Fianna Fáil cry "gerrymandering" unless the result of the European——

Explain the delay in bringing in the Bill.

If the Deputy is not careful I shall move the adjournment of this debate and resume it next week if we get time. I shall not have the Deputy, at least if I can avoid it, broadcasting to the nation his eccentric views on European gerrymandering without being given an opportunity to reply. I cannot see how it can be described as gerrymandering unless, as I said six weeks ago, that Fianna Fáil regard as gerrymandering anything that does not provide them with a built-in advantage. They are accustomed to that because they fixed all the constituencies that were ever fixed until two years ago and it is difficult for them to conceive of anything else which does not give them an advantage. This does not but I am damned if I can see that it provides the Coalition parties with a built-in advantage either and it is perfectly possible that Fianna Fáil will wind up with a bare majority of these European seats and if they do so in rough correspondence with the way the people have voted, good luck to them. It is possible that Fianna Fáil will end up with an overall majority of seats in the European Parliament. If people vote that way, I do not question their right to end up with a majority but if the people do not vote that way I certainly question their right to end up with a majority based on a possible minority of votes.

Whether Fianna Fáil has a majority or not is not the issue; it is the kind of constituency I am talking about.

I believe there must be at least three seats and that means that in rural Ireland constituencies will be enormous as whole packets of counties will come into it. The Deputy moved on to the question of how long it had been since we debated Europe here. It is true that the Government are obliged to report to the Oireachtas on developments in the Communities every year. There is no obligation on the Government to devote parliamentary time to debating them. It is a useful and agreeable exercise when there is no severe pressure of legislative work. That has not been the case since the time the Deputy mentioned, early 1975, because 1975 was a murderous year in parliamentary time. I shall never forget it; it nearly killed some of us. This was largely accounted for by the gross squandering of time by the Opposition in fighting against capital taxation reform Bills, which they would now prefer to have forgotten because they realise that they made a serious mistake in opposing them. To some extent that is why time has been short ever since. As regards the delay I have not time to explain in the greatest detail the various problems that arose behind what seems to be a very simple Bill. I agree that a first-year law student, if told what to do, could have drafted this Bill in five minutes. But he might have made the wrong decision, or anybody else might have, in regard to whether to have a Bill at all or whether to have a much more detailed Bill. Serious doubts and questions of a legal and constitutional kind arose in regard to implementing the treaty we signed in 1975. The papers I have in front of me are by no means the whole file. Correspondence and consideration has been going back and forward between my Department and the Attorney General's office at least since the beginning of 1976 which accounts for more than one complete year of the 18 months of which the Deputy complains.

That was a year in which the Attorney General's Office was by no means at leisure. That was a year when they were put to the pin of their collars not only with their ordinary work but with work on the Criminal Law Jurisdiction Bill, the Emergency Powers Bill and the enormous range of constitution difficulties which arose in that connection.

What constitutional issue did you ask the Attorney General to resolve about this Bill?

I will give one constitutional issue. I do not want to raise a scare or panic about this and I would sooner not go into these matters. I will mention one difficulty which I do not think is very serious but which others thought was substantial. The constitutional amendment passed in 1972 which provides that nothing in the Constitution shall be invoked to invalidate something which is necessitated by our membership of the Community —I do not think that is correct but others are less certain—arguably refers only to necessities arising from the structure of the Community as it was at that time. I do not think that point has much substance.

Nor would anyone else. I asked for an example of a constitutional issue.

As I said, I do not think that point has much substance but others whose expertise is greater than mine were not so sure. Points of greater complexity also arose. The Deputy is smiling because he knows that his charges have been nearly set in type by this time and that anything I now say——

I cannot imagine what constitutional lawyer would hold that view——

I do not think that is a substantial point but I say for the third time that others disagreed. The Deputy has enough experience of Government to know that disagreement on a matter like this generates a great deal of paper and a great deal of delay.

I had in mind to say some hurtful things about delays I experienced under other Administrations, but I will let them go because it is getting late. In order to put into perspective what Deputy O'Kennedy was saying at the outset of his speech about how we had a lot of explaining to do, I want to say that this Opposition, for the first time ever, have at their disposal three hours week in and week out. There is nothing in Standing Orders, the conventions of this House, the law or the Constitution to prevent them putting down a motion which would take the form of a motion to read a Bill of this kind which according to Deputy O'Kennedy they could draft in five minutes, or a law student could do it in five minutes, or a chap in the think-tank could do it in three minutes.

I want to be clear on this. Is the Parliamentary Secretary suggesting that the Opposition should put down motions to give effect to treaties signed by the Government?

No. What I am saying is that if I were in Opposition and felt as strongly about this as Deputy O'Kennedy pretends to feel, I would have done that instead of wasting the time of this House looking for more money for Fota Island, the Rosslare train service and so on. These are the issues we have heard week in and week out. As soon as the newspaper has been used to wrap chips these issues are forgotten. If the Opposition knew, as Deputy O'Kennedy knew because Senator Yeats told him, that we were being chivvied by the Europeans——

I asked a question about that.

I am sorry. I accept that of course. If the matter was that serious, what was to stop the Opposition from using their Private Members' Time to show up the Government. They would, of course, have got a very full answer in regard to delay, just as I have been prevented from giving that. They could have had this information last month, six months ago or even a year ago. Incidentally, the same goes for general European discussions. There is nothing in the world to stop Deputy O'Kennedy from putting down a motion for this House to take note of the Seventh Report, whichever report has not yet been discussed, of the European Communities.

Fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth.

The fifth and sixth reports are in the course of discussion and that debate was interrupted.

That is all I have time to say. I would have been much more lengthy and perhaps even hurtful if I had more time. I thank Deputy O'Kennedy for his well intentioned and constructive speech and I hope the Bill will quickly pass.

Questions put and agreed to.

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