JOINT COMMITTEE ON EUROPEAN AFFAIRS debate -
Friday, 17 Jan 2003

Vol. 1 No. 7

Prelude

The Joint Committee met at 10.30 a.m.

Members Present:

Deputy B. Andrews,	Deputy A. Ó Snodaigh,
Deputy P. Carey,	Deputy D. Roche (Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs),
Deputy M. Harkin,	Deputy M. Sexton,
Deputy S. Haughey,	Senator D. Lydon,
Deputy S. Kirk,	Senator D. McDowell,
Deputy M. Mulcahy,	Senator A. Ormonde.
Deputy J. O’Keeffe,

In attendance: Deputy J. Bruton, Ms A. Doyle, MEP and Ms P. McKenna, MEP.

DEPUTY G. MITCHELL in the chair.

Chairman

I welcome the members of the committee, the members of the convention and the Minister of State, Deputy Roche. We will discuss national parliaments and subsidiarity together. That will be followed by complementary competences, after which there will be a briefing from the Minister on social Europe. We will then go into our pre-GAC meeting because we will be in Brussels for two days next week and in Mayo at the end of the week. The Minister will take us through that later.

The minutes of the meeting held on 12 December have been circulated. Are they agreed? Agreed. We will start the discussion with members of the convention on the future of Europe.