Joint Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities: Motion.

Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (Mr. O'Keeffe)

I move:

(1) That a Select Committee consisting of 18 members of Dáil Éireann (none of whom shall be a representative in the Assembly of the European Communities) be appointed to be joined with a Select Committee appointed by Seanad Éireann to form the Joint Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities

(a) to examine

(i) such programmes and guidelines prepared by the Commission of the European Communities as a basis for possible legislative action and such drafts of regulations, directives, decisions, recommendations and opinions of the Council of Ministers proposed by the Commission,

(ii) such acts of the institutions of those Communities,

(iii) such regulations under the European Communities Act, 1972 (No. 27 of 1972), and

(iv) such other instruments made under statute and necessitated by the obligations of membership of those Communities

as the Committee may select and to report thereon to both Houses of the Oireachtas; and

(b) to examine the question of dual membership of Dáil Éireann or Seanad Éireann and the European Assembly and to consider the relations between the Irish representatives in the European Assembly and Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann and to report thereon to both Houses of the Oireachtas;

(2) That in the absence from a particular meeting of the Joint Committee of a member who is a member of Dáil Éireann, another member of Dáil Éireann nominated by the Party to which the absent member belongs may take part in the proceedings and vote in his stead; and that members of Dáil Éireann, not being members of the Joint Committee, may attend meetings and take part in the proceedings without having a right to vote;

(3) That members of Dáil Éireann who are representatives in the Assembly of the European Communities be notified of meetings and be allowed to attend and take part in the proceedings without having a right to vote;

(4) That the Joint Committee, previous to the commencement of business, shall elect one of its members to be Chairman who shall have only one vote;

(5) That all questions in the Joint Committee shall be determined by a majority of votes of the members present and voting and in the event of there being an equality of votes the question shall be decided in the negative;

(6) That every report which the Joint Committee proposes to make under this Order shall, on adoption by the Joint Committee, be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas forthwith, whereupon the Joint Committee shall be empowered to print and publish such report together with such related documents as it thinks fit; and

(7) That five members of the Joint Committee shall form a quorum of whom at least one shall be a member of Dáil Éireann and at least one shall be a member of Seanad Éireann.

The next step in the process of appointing the new Joint Committee has been reached. This House is asked to approve a motion appointing a Select Committee, consisting of 18 Members of the Dáil, to be joined with a Select Committee appointed by the Seanad, to form the Joint Committee. The Seanad has already passed a similar motion.

When Ireland joined the European Economic Community, a new legal order was adopted, which now takes precedence over the national systems of law-making in the areas covered by the Treaties. The ability of the Community to enact laws in many important areas, meant a distinct limitation of the powers of the Oireachtas, and it was against this background that the Joint Committee on Secondary Legislation was established, by expediency motions passed by both Houses in July 1973, the object being to allow the Oireachtas to influence Community legislation in those areas where the Houses had had to surrender their exclusive powers, and to supervise the implementation of such legislation in Ireland. The Joint Committee is dissolved when the Dáil and Seanad are dissolved, and must be reconstituted by order passed by each House, after a general election.

The terms of reference of the Joint Committee give the Committee authority to examine Community legislation at three stages in the process of its adoption. It may examine legislation at the draft stage, it may examine Community Acts, and it may examine ministerial regulations made under the European Communities Act 1972, and instruments made under other statutes in order to implement our Community obligations.

I would like to pay tribute to the work of previous Joint Committees, all of which have done vast amounts of work with very little public recognition. I should like to join, of course, to that a tribute to the staff who have been so helpful to the Joint Committees in the past.

Much of the Community legislation is of a highly complex and technical nature, which makes the task even more demanding. The Joint Committee selects for examination, those draft Acts which they consider of particular importance to Ireland, and they examine all statutory instruments made to implement Community laws. Reports, to the Houses of the Oireachtas, are then prepared. During the last session, 94 reports were prepared by the Joint Committee, nine of which were considered by the Seanad. Of these nine, two were also considered by the Dáil.

The subject of the Joint Committee was last raised in this House on 2 December 1981. On that occasion the proposed terms of reference of the new Joint Committee were approved. In addition to its mandate to examine Community legislation, the Joint Committee will further undertake the extremely important task of examining the relationship between the National Legislature, and the European Parliament. This will encompass the examination of various suggestions about participation of our MEP's in the work of the Dáil and the Seanad, and their role as regards the Joint Committee itself, as well as the question of the so-called dual mandate.

We must remember that although we have, at present, no Joint Committee, the flow of legislation from Brussels has not been halted. It is, therefore, extremely important that the Joint Committee be reconstituted without further delay, in order that it may resume its work and so I ask the House to give its approval to this motion. Finally, I should like to welcome the new Opposition Spokesman on Foreign Affairs to his new post and wish him every success.

Mr. G. Collins

I should like to thank the Minister of State for his good wishes and the welcome he has given to me in the new role I have undertaken. I look forward to working with him and the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Indeed, I have a lot of experience of working with the Minister of State because we faced each other on many issues over the years, not necessarily agreeing on everything, but on the basics we never really differed.

With regard to the motion, the House is aware that Fianna Fáil support it. The motion of expediency was discussed and passed by the House on 2 December last and for that reason I shall not repeat what my predecessor, Deputy Lehihan, said on that occasion. However, as this is the first occasion I have had an opportunity to speak as Fianna Fáil spokesman on Foreign Affairs I should like to add a few words on the importance of the European Community to the work of the Dáil. Undoubtedly, this is one of the most important Committees that will be established in the lifetime of this Dáil and I feel obliged to remark that we have been a bit lax about getting it off the ground. The Dáil is now seven months in existence and I appreciate that as this is a Joint Committee of the Houses of the Oireachtas certain technicalities must be gone through, but because of the importance of the Joint Committee and the type of work it has to do, we should ensure in future that a seven-month period does not elapse before the Committee is established.

A lot of legislation, many directives, programmes and guidelines will have to be examined by the new Joint Committee. Since we joined the EEC we have had two Joint Committees and I understand that they always worked in arrears. I understand that some Members have expressed the view that it would be better if they could keep up to date with what is happening. Members of the Joint Committee have also expressed the view that if they were able to keep up to date they might be able to make a better input into the discussions. I appreciate the view expressed by the Minister of State that even though the Joint Committee was not functioning the work of the EEC did not stop and matters that should be examined by such a Committee still flowed from the EEC. I hope the Committee is established very soon and that the members get down to tackling the great problem that face them. The legislation of the European Community impinges in many ways not only on the life of our citizens but also on our existing legislation. It is important for us to examine the implications of the legislative proposals of the EEC when they are still at discussion stage. I agree with the Minister of State when he stated that the former Joint Committees did valuable work. Members of this House, and Senators, get an opportunity when on that Joint Committee to become more familiar with the work and procedures of the EEC. It must be remembered that the EEC affects all Departments including the Department of Justice which I was responsible for up to last June. I have every confidence that the members of the third Joint Committee will take their work seriously so that there will be no possibility of the Dáil or the Seanad being by-passed on any important EEC legislation.

The additional function of the Joint Committee will be the resolution of the dual membership position. As the Minister of State is aware Fianna Fáil have adopted a clear position on this issue and that position can now be seen to have been taken in the national interest. In fact we may in 1979 have paid some price for our decision in that regard. In the present parliamentary situation here Fianna Fáil members are the only Irish representatives south of the Border providing an effective presence in Europe. It is clear also that we will have to devise some system whereby the European members can retain their links with the Oireachtas. There are a number of possibilities which can be adopted but I do not intend to go into them on this occasion. I believe that the terms of reference of the Joint Committee will ensure that those possibilities are fully teased out and studied.

The Joint Committee will consist of 18 TDs and eight Senators and the position in relation to substitute Members is very sensible. The Minister should tell the House how the membership of the Joint Committee is to be broken down between Government and Opposition. It is important that we should know this.

The matter of chairmanship was raised during the discussion on this expediency motion on December 2. The Minister on that date gave an assurance that he would find out the Government's intentions with regard to the chairmanship and whether or not the precedent which had been established, of a Member of the Opposition being chairman of this committee, would be maintained. It is important that this should be so. I strongly urge the Minister and the Government to consider this step. I thought that the Minister might have said something in that regard in his introductory remarks. If that precedent were not being followed, I would, naturally, have had a lot more to say.

One of the most important aspects of this committee will be to ensure that Members of the European Parliament forge exceptionally strong links between the European Parliament and Oireachtas Éireann. In time, the dual mandate will go. The Minister of State last December gave an indication to this effect. I think I am quoting him reasonably accurately as saying that the probability was that the dual mandate would be phased out in the future. If so, now is the time to establish exceptionally strong links between the Members of the European Parliament and Oireachtas Éireann.

I am glad to see that the terms of reference for the establishment of this committee provide for the presence of MEPs at meetings and participation in discussions, but without a vote. Suggestions have been made regarding the possibility of giving MEPs a right of audience in this House, which is a big question. I gather that there are constitutional difficulties to be examined there and I do not know if these could be overcome. If the committee examine this matter we shall be able to see where we might progress from there.

As soon as this motion is approved in this House — it has, I gather, already been approved by the Seanad — we should take immediate steps to get this committee off the ground. They have a monumental task in front of them in studying guidelines, directives, draft legislation and so forth. I urge the Minister to treat this matter as of great importance.

The committee would probably work more effectively, and feel that they were doing so, if they could study the draft legislation, rather than legislation which has been enacted. There is permission for this. If we are to make suggestions along the way on matters which affect us as a community, this would be better done before the legislation is enacted. Any help or assistance which my party can give to the Government parties in seeing that this committee will be a success will assuredly be given.

Mr. MacSharry

Firstly, I agree with everything which Deputy Collins has said and add my words of tribute to the tremendous work which has been done by the membership of this committee in the past. When I say what I have to say afterwards, I hope that it will not be taken as criticism of the membership since 1973. The emphasis, even in the Minister's speech — for which there may be some technical or legal reason — is on the examination by the committee of Community Acts, ministerial regulations and so forth and there is not sufficient evidence of support for examination by the committee of opinions of the Council of Ministers on various proposals by the Commission, which may or may not at a future date lead to Community legislation. One often finds that these are even more important items than Community legislation for discussion by this committee.

This committee have not met since May 1981 and the amount of legislation which has come from the community since then is enormous. Their task is daunting in the weeks and months ahead, in expressing opinions on legislation. The point made by Deputy Collins is very relevant. We will now be setting up a committee to examine what, in the main, will be legislation which is already approved and in operation. Only now is the opinion of this House being expressed. This committee is taking over the function of this House in regard to that legislation. We must look for ways and means of streamlining that process. The support given by Deputy Collins from this side of the House is there. We would like the committee of selection to meet, possibly this week, once this motion is agreed — and we will not oppose it today. The Minister of State is mentioning this Thursday, which is good. It is important that the committee fully formed should have their first committee meeting next week.

I do not wish to delay procedure, but want to say a few words on agriculture. The most important factor which encouraged Ireland's entry into the Community was the existence of the now well-known common agricultural policy. Many things happen under the common agricultural policy each year which may or may not require Community legislation, directives, decisions and so forth. From what I know of this committee and its operation, nothing like sufficient time has been spent in examining those proposals. I think I am right in saying that the only occasion when such discussions took place were the discussions on the 1976-77 and 1980-81 price proposals submitted to the Council of Ministers. From my experience as a Minister in the negotiations in Brussels and — which is the most important area for our economy — discussions under the common agricultural sector during the course of each year and particularly at its beginning when the price proposals are published, there is not sufficient examination of these by this House, through its committee.

It is important to set up the procedures to enable that to take place. There will be the odd debate, discussion or question in the Dáil, but the in-depth examination which can and does go on with the excellent membership of this committee and its back-up services should be used more extensively in the future as compared with the past, for examination of the various important proposals coming from the Community regarding our agricultural sector. I make that point and hope that the Minister will take it up and that we will have, through the committee, the various examinations and reports, relating to the measures proposed by the Commission or the Council of Ministers, particularly those at the beginning of the year which govern the operation of the common agricultural policy during the course of the following year. I understand that these proposals will be published this week and would like to see the committee examining and giving an opinion on them.

Discussion has been going on since June of last year regarding the mandate for the reform of the Community budget which, in essence, means reform of expenditure under the common agricultural policy. As I said, the most important factor for us in joining the Community was the existence of the common agricultural policy. I would hope that this committee, by its reports to the House, would enable this House discuss these matters further. Ministers in Government will be glad of the informed opinions of representatives of this House, through this committee, when they go to negotiate on our behalf.

One of the most important questions raised since we joined the Community is the suggestion of curtailing or fixing a limit on agricultural expenditure. That is undermining the fundamental principles of the common agricultural policy. It is something that this committee will have to look into and very seriously consider because that, in essence, is a renegotiation from the Community side of the terms of agreement when we joined in 1973. That is very serious for this country. There is already the experience of the UK government who are negotiating their membership of the Community for the third time. Greece, who joined this time last year, are now talking about a renegotiation of their terms of membership of the Community. At the same time, adverse proposals are emanating from the Commission with the support of a substantial number of the Council of Ministers, eight or nine of the ten countries supporting recommendations by the Commission which are detrimental to the Irish economy and particularly to the agricultural sector.

I just wanted to make these few points to the Minister and to the Government and to ask them to assist this Committee in this work in whatever way they can, to ensure that these very important matters are discused in advance of any major decisions being made on them in the Community. The Minister rightly talked about regulations and legislation, decisions and opinions. Opinions are very important, particularly the opinions of the Council of Ministers on points proposed by the Commission. Long in advance of these matters being discussed at Council meetings, our committee is going to have to look at them and give their opinion, their concensus view, in so far as it represents this House and the people, to ensure that the Minister is expressing the wishes of the people of Ireland in relation to the decisions being made by him and is also reinforcing the case he is about to make on behalf of the Irish community in any decisions that are being made in Brussels.

I would like to think those viewpoints are relevant. I know they are important. I hope that they are acted upon and that the Minister will make whatever staffing and back-up services are required for this very important work available to this committee. I do not intend to be in any way critical of the membership of this committee in the past. They have done tremendous work. It is very difficult work and very important work and much of it very rarely sees the light of day. But in the areas where we are fundamentally affected by decisions of the Community, particularly in the agricultural area, and not necessarily just agricultural legislation and decisions and regulations but in relation to opinions and suggestions that are being put forward by the Commission or even a member state, the Government will be anxious to have the back-up of this committee to reinforce their hand when it comes to negotiating these points. I would like to see a greater emphasis in the future by this committee on that aspect of the Community work.

Mr. Wilson

First I would like to welcome the initiative setting up the select committee. The work is important and it is onerous. I would emphasise what Deputy Collins and Deputy MacSharry said about the provision for the committee of all the facilities they need to do their work properly. Sometimes the work is very worthwhile and the hardship is great and very little public recognition is given for that kind of work. This does not encourage people who regard it as a patriotic duty to give of their time and energy to committees such as this.

I want to speak briefly on the educational aspect. Unfortunately, up to now the select committee has not had very much work to do with regard to education in the European Economic Committee. This is something about which I feel very strongly because the founding fathers, the original promoters of the idea of a European Economic Community, stresssed very strongly the fact that the countries that were to be united in this Community share the same philosophic heritage, the Greco-Roman-Hebraic philosophies and that Europe was cemented together through sharing those philosophic origins. Years and years of propaganda went into establishing this thesis and it is a matter of some regret that since the Community was established there has been a tendency to ignore that aspect and to emphasise more and more the economic aspects. Many of the Commissioners and Ministers over the years have been aware of this problem. I do not know whether this is sustained or not but there has been an effort to call this the European Community rather than the European Economic Community. Still, "EEC" is what mostly appears in documents although for a while at least "EC" or "European Community" were the terms used. I know that we cannot be too much up in the air; we cannot divorce ourselves from the reality of the economics of the Community. But a good deal of the trouble that has developed in the Community, the long sessions, the wrangling about juste retort, the refusal to make subscriptions in accordance with the rules, which we had from Great Britain, the attempt to break down the common agricultural policy which is the only really successful policy since the Community was established, springs to a certain extent from too much pragmatism and too little consciousness of what motivated the original thinkers in the European Economic Community who, after all, were still carrying the trau-mata of a savage war. When there were only six members, all the propaganda thrust was to emphasise shared roots in Europe. Nowadays we do not hear anything about that. Everyone is watching his own patch and seeing what he can get out of the Community.

As far as education is concerned there is a serious problem because some of the members of the enlarged Community do not feel they have justification from the Treaty of Rome for any educational advance. The Danes in particular have been stressing this and I can see their problems. They have had people elected to the European parliament who are anti-EEC. Perhaps it would be better not to go into any detail about countries, but the Danes have a very special problem with regard to participating in any Council of Ministers of Education. To a certain extent the French had also. I know that Monsieur Beulac, when he was Minister for Education, was very anxious to make some advance in education in a European context but he was circumscribed by various circumstances. I do not know what the situation is with the new administration in France but it is something that we should emphasise. In addressing the Council of Ministers on one occasion I mentioned that one of the major problems is ignorance of the institutions, ignorance of the respective civilisations of the various countries that make up the EEC. Many of the Ministers agreed with me on this.

I had a proposal that there would be available at post primary school level a Euro livre which would cover a wide range of history, cultural history and economic history, perhaps in the format of Keesing's contempory archives where the economic pages could be extracted year after year and up to date ones inserted. I got backing for this idea particularly from France. The British gave qualified backing. It is left to the staff of the different schools there to choose what is studied. If such a book were made available in a number of languages not only would it help in the learning of languages but it would also help to attack the basic defect, and that is ignorance of the Community and apathy towards it.

Unless things change this committee will not have a lot to do with education because there are so many inhibitions to educational advancement and development. In the Treaty of Rome there is written down the right of establishment, for citizens in the Community. It is logical to argue that, if there is the right of establishment, education should play a big part in preparing the citizens of one country to establish themselves in another. There are other problems about equivalence of qualifications and so on about which the Community have been conscious for some time. The matter has been studied. There are problems with professional bodies. It is logical that, since there is a right of establishment, there is also a right to equip citizens for establishing themselves in the various countries of the Community.

It is important that education was allocated to the Social Affairs Commission. Commissioner Burke had responsibility for it for a brief period at the end of his time as commissioner. It is properly placed, seeing that there are serious problems of youth unemployment and of equipping young people for work after they leave school. Being under the ferula of the Commissioner for Social Affairs, education may have a chance to advance.

The Minister mentioned the European Parliament. I know the Parliament are conscious of the need for educational development in the EEC. Members of the House have received a resolution from the Parliament indicating their concern about some of the points I have made. The resolution is cast in the kind of legalistic formula which Europeans seem to love. It is very long but, if one gets at the substance of it, it is that they want an advance on the educational front. Neglect of the philosophical area has caused some of the problems. I am not so foolish as to believe that economics are not very important and that each country must watch its caulk, to borrow a shipping metaphor. I do not believe policies such as the CAP will be able to survive if they are assessed on this principle alone. Those are not the principles on which the EEC set out.

The conclusions of the Ministers for Education meeting within the Council last June were mainly concerned with the problems of employment and equipping young people for employment. Perhaps this is not the place to expand on this area, which is one of great disappointment to me. It is my hope that this committee will have something before it, either in draft form or otherwise, affecting education and developing it in a Community context.

Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs (Mr. O'Keeffe)

I thank Deputies for their contribution and the support given to the establishment of the committee. Deputy Collins rightly referred to the rather complex procedure involved in setting up such a committee and the delays consequent thereon. I am glad to confirm that this is the last stage and that the committee can now get to work straight away. The point he raised about procedure should be looked at by the Committee on Procedure and Privileges as to whether the procedure could be simplified. particularly where there is unanimous support on all sides for such a committee.

The question of the functions of the committee is not a matter with which I dealt in great detail. This matter was before the House last month. I accept that an important aspect of the committee's work will be the question of considering the relationship between MEPs and the Oireachtas. I referred to three or four options which might be considered. There may be others from the committee. The question of numbers was raised and the situation agreed between the parties is on the following lines: Fianna Fáil, eight TDs and three Senators; Fine Gael, seven TDs and three Senators; Labour two TDs and one Senator; Independents, one TD and one Senator. I understand that has been agreed and it is a matter for the Committee of Selection to nominate people as soon as possible.

When the matter was before the House last month I undertook to recommend to the Government that tradition should be followed in regard to chairmanship of the committee. It will be a matter for the committee to elect its own chairman but I have reason to believe that my recommendation will have the result that all members will be inclined to follow precedent.

Deputy MacSharry referred to the importance of Opinions of the Council of Ministers. Under their terms of reference, the committee have power to examine inter-alia Opinions of the council. The Deputy highlighted the importance of agriculture and pleaded that more time should be spent on dealing with agricultural problems. This is a matter for the committee. It will be up to the members to organise their work rota but I agree that agriculture is of such tremendous importance to us that it would be proper for the committee to spend a good proportion of their time in dealing with it.

This is all the more relevant when one considers the 30 May mandate, perhaps one of the most serious European problems we have faced — I believe the most serious — since we joined the EEC. The pressures that exist now in regard to the CAP are such that it behoves us all to stand together on this issue. The only point I make here is that I do not see any politics, as it were, in this area. Every Member of this House and all parties are fairly and irrevocably committed to standing behind the CAP. It is clearly in the interest of this country; it is clearly one of of the main inducements which caused this country to vote so over-whelmingly to join the EEC. It would be appropriate that the committee should have an informed opinion on this issue.

Deputy Wilson has, as one would expect, highlighted the educational aspects and the importance of that sector. I have to agree with him that the original European ideal is at this stage somewhat lost in the financial matters and when one hears talk about juste retour money it runs contrary to the original European spirit. One point I make to Deputy Wilson is that in the area of foreign affairs, for which I have special responsibility for development co-operation, I would always regard development education as very important. By way of analogy I would feel, arising from what Deputy Wilson had to say that there probably is not enough European education, as it were, and people are not completely aware of what is happening there, and because of that lack of awareness support for the European ideal and the European institutions is probably diminishing.

Lastly, the point made by the Opposition about the work of the members of this committee being unrecognised is worth making and recording because their meetings normally are held without publicity of any description. The work involved is very complex and at times quite tedious and I am sure most members of the public and, indeed, possibly certain people whose suggestion is that they do no work at all are hardly aware of the existence of the committee and the work they are doing. Therefore, it is important that they be recognised here.

I thank the House for the support it has given to this motion.

Question put and agreed to.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

A message will be sent to the Seanad advising them accordingly.

Dáil Éireann debate - Tuesday, 26 Jan 1982