The House has two separate jobs to do in this very brief debate and it is important to do both of them. The first is to ensure we get the maximum amount of money for Ireland and that everything said in the debate strengthens the case for the money. The second and less palatable job we have to do is to come to a judgment as to whether the Ministers who have been representing us have done their job competently. Both jobs must be done without one damaging the other.
In terms of getting the maximum amount of money for Ireland, the Taoiseach can be sure he has the support of my party. There is eminent justification for the full, in current day equivalence, £9.2 billion, which the Taoiseach said he was getting before the Maastricht referendum. It is justified by the fact that Ireland will be the only island nation in Europe; on the basis that we have the highest rate of dependency and the maximum number of people who have no jobs depending on those who have jobs. If a GATT deal goes through Ireland will suffer more than any other European country and the number of job losses will be immense as a recent EC study has shown that peripheral nations suffer more from economic and monetary union than those near the centre.
There is a very strong case for extra money. The Taoiseach should have tabled a motion in this House outlining the case he sought to make in this debate so that it could be agreed by the House. He would have been wise to have such a motion agreed here. Even in the absence of such a motion the Taoiseach should this afternoon, in the company of the Tánaiste, go to Brussels to meet President Delors to discuss this matter before any decisions are taken at the Commission meeting tomorrow. Only if the Taoiseach does that will he show he has the requisite seriousness in regard to getting this money for Ireland.
In regard to the second function the Dáil must perform relating to the competence of Ministers in this matter, two questions remain unanswered. If the Government enters into agreements of such importance why does it not get those agreements in writing signed by the people who made them? In even the most minor matter such as the text of a double taxation agreement between Ireland and Malaysia, the exact agreement is written in reams of paper even though in practice the amount of money involved may be minor. Why, in a matter of huge moment in Edinburgh, did the Taoiseach not get agreement in writing to what he claimed he was getting at that time — £8 billion over seven years?
Before the Maastricht Treaty was agreed by the people the Taoiseach said we would get £6 billion over five years. Taking into account that the planned period is now seven years and that the pound has been devalued by 10 per cent, what the Taoiseach was telling the Irish people before the Maastricht referendum was that we would get the equivalent, over seven years, of £9.2 billion. We are not getting that amount and the Taoiseach's credibility in terms of what he said before the Maastricht Referendum has been devalued as a result.
One of the reasons Members of the Dáil were so upset this morning is that, unfortunately, the Taoiseach does not have very high credibility in matters of this nature. In the Taoiseach's statement in the Dáil on 16 December after the Edinburgh Summit, he said:
Deputy Bruton, on 6 May last in this House, accused me of making wild promises and of presenting the £6 billion as a bribe from the European fairy godmother.
He went on to say:
My strategy and negotiating tactics have been vindicated. The agreement now reached ensures — and I say this with complete confidence — that Ireland will obtain in excess of £8 billion over seven years.
Subsequent to that statement the Irish pound was devalued. The Taoiseach was saying that in present money terms we would get £8.8 billion. He said he had an agreement to that effect but it was not in writing. Why was that agreement not in writing and who was the agreement with? Why is it that even last week the Taoiseach said we would get £8 billion, and not the £8.8 billion promised? There is a question as to why the Government seems to think it can say one thing to the electorate at home and say a different thing to the people with whom it is negotiating in Brussels? Why does the Government delude itself that one will not find out what has been said to the other?
I am concerned about the amount referred to by the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs in his statement in July of this year, which of course was considerably less in terms of the amount promised than the amount referred to by the Taoiseach after the Edinburgh Summit. The Tánaiste said that instead of £8.8 billion in current money, we would get £7.8 billion in current money. One billion pounds was lost between the Taoiseach's statement after the Edinburgh Summit and the Tánaiste's statement after the meeting last July. After the meeting last July, the Tánaiste said "there is certainty in relation to the figures". Furthermore he said that he was "100 per cent satisfied that the figures would not unravel". There was a report this morning on AERTEL that the European Commission is to discuss proposals today which could reduce Ireland's £7.8 billion share of Structural Funds by several hundred million pounds.
I should like to know why the Tánaiste did not get an agreement in writing in regard to what he said was an agreement which would not unravel. If he was 100 per cent satisfied that the figures would not unravel, then presumably the people with whom he was dealing were also 100 per cent satisfied that they would not unravel. If both were 100 per cent satisfied, why could they not agree to put the figures in writing? Why did the Tánaiste fall into the same trap the Taoiseach had fallen into by relying on an oral agreement when he could have had an agreement in writing? Did the Tánaiste not learn from the problems with which the Taoiseach was faced after the Edinburgh Summit where he had relied on an oral agreement rather than an agreement in writing? Why did the Tánaiste not insist on getting an agreement in writing?
It is important to recognise that the difference we are talking about here is no minor matter of arithmetic; we are talking about real money. There is a gap between the amount referred to by the Taoiseach before the Maastricht Treaty — £6 billion over five years, translated to approximately £9.2 billion over seven years, taking into account devaluation— and the figure referred to this morning by European sources of a mere £7.3 billion. That is a very big difference of more than £2 billion. I wish to illustrate the enormity of this difference. The difference between the amount the Taoiseach said we would get before the Maastricht Treaty and the amount European sources in Brussels have said today we will actually get is £570 for every person in this county or £6,600 for every unemployed person. That is what is at stake. That is the amount which will have been progressively whittled away since the original statements made by the Taoiseach before Maastricht, his revised statement after the Edinburgh Summit, the further revision by the Tánaiste after the July meeting and the possible further revision tomorrow after the Commission meeting.
We cannot afford this progressive revision downwards of our entitlements in this matter. We have to question the competence of Ministers who could allow this to happen without ensuring that they got an agreement in writing. It is a cliché to say that an oral agreement is not worth the paper it is written on. A person in their first year in business after leaving school will tell you to get an agreement in writing if you want to be sure. Neither the Taoiseach nor the Tánaiste seems to realise that it is common prudence to "get it in writing" before they come home or say in the media "the money is in the bag; I am 100 per cent satisfied about the figures and this deal will not unravel", all statements made either by the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste who subsequently had their words contradicted.
I should like to ask a question. I am being as restrained as possible in view of the fact that a meeting is to take place tomorrow. When the Government supplied this document last Friday week to the European Commission — I presume that the Minister for Finance went to Brussels with this document — did it ask whether it was definite and agreed, without any question of being reopened, that we would get £7.8 billion? Did the Minister for Finance ask if there was any doubt in the mind of Commissioner Millan, who is responsible for the Structural Funds, that we would get the money? If he did not ask that question, why did he not ask it? Why did he allow the Taoiseach to come in here and say that he had approximately £8 billion when it would appear from reports from Brussels that some people there were not as "100 per cent satisfied" as the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs about this matter? Not everyone had the same understanding.
The Minister for Finance who went to Brussels previously should have established whether this document was a work of fact or a work of fiction before the document was published and before the necessity of debating it in this House. It seems that the Minister for Finance, the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach have been shown throughout this episode to be at best naive in their approach to international relations. They did not take the elementary steps of prudence which even the most lowly and recently qualified solicitor would advise them to take, namely, if you are getting an agreement get it in writing. I am sure the Minister for Equality and Law Reform, Deputy Taylor, in his capacity as a solicitor, would have advised the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach, if they were willing to listen to him, that they should get the agreement in writing. Why did they not get the agreement in writing and why did we debate a plan which contained figures which were not cast in bronze?