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JOINT COMMITTEE ON EUROPEAN AFFAIRS debate -
Thursday, 11 Dec 2003

Vol. 1 No. 56

Visit of House of Commons Scrutiny Committee.

I apologise for the delay in starting. I welcome the chairman and members of the European Scrutiny Committee of the House of Commons. Mr. Jimmy Hood MP is well known to us, and his committee and its staff have been very helpful to our staff in establishing scrutiny here. I welcome Mr. Michael Connarty MP, Mr. Jim Dobbin MP, Mr. Mark Hendrick MP, Mr. John Robertson MP and Mr. Bill Tynan MP. You are all very welcome and it is a great opportunity for us to have an exchange of views. I also thank Dorian Gerhold, clerk to the committee, Terry Byrne, policy adviser and Gunnar Beck, assistant legal adviser, who have also been very helpful to our staff in setting up the process.

We will meet again during the COSAC process in Dublin in the new year. We hope to bring a report on the European Court of Auditors forward for discussion at COSAC. The Dublin COSAC meeting will be the first with all the new members. We presume the Intergovernmental Conference will conclude this weekend and we will see where that takes us.

We carry out our work somewhat differently. This is a joint committee of the Dáil and Seanad. MEPs have the right of attendance and participation, but not the right to vote. However, this does not matter much as we rarely need to vote and usually agree by consensus. Each month the committee meets the Minister for Foreign Affairs before he attends the General Affairs and External Relations Council. This has only happened since this Dáil was elected. We passed a European Union (Scrutiny) Act last year. We go through the agenda with the Minister and ask him questions and raise issues. While we do not mandate him, as does the Danish Parliament, we go through the process with him.

We met our Government and parliamentary representatives on the Convention before and after they attended plenary meetings. We meet Commissioners and have other meetings on topics we choose relating to European affairs.

We have a sub-committee on scrutiny, which I chair. That sub-committee by law must receive all draft directives and regulations in a certain format within four weeks of them being received from the Commission. We then consider them and decide whether they need further scrutiny. In about 70% of the cases we decide they do not need further scrutiny. In about 30% of the cases we send them for further scrutiny. We do not scrutinise them at this committee, but send them to sectoral committees such as the one with responsibility for transport, justice, etc. In this regard our work format is somewhat different from yours.

I ask the chairman to outline how his committee works. At the end of this year we have a legislative responsibility to report to both Houses of the Oireachtas on the workings of scrutiny do far. We need to consider our strengths and weaknesses. While it has been a great move forward from where we were, there are still weaknesses and resource problems and we still have a long way to go. We are interested to hear how this operates in the House of Commons.

Mr. Jimmy Hood, MP

I thank you very much for your welcome. I know we packed a lot of work into yesterday and we still have some business today. We have found it both informative and enjoyable. I thank you, your colleagues and the Ministers we have met for making it such a successful visit.

Before I outline how the committee works, I will explain why we visit the Presidencies, under normal circumstances before they take over, to get a flavour of what they see as their priorities. We talk to our colleagues such as the members of this committee and Ministers to get a flavour of what the agenda will be for the following six months. This allows us to better prepare ourselves for the work we do as a committee. We find it very useful and important to the work we do. We tell all committees that do not do this about our experience and invite them to do so also. Many other committees now do this.

Our committee has 16 members. There are ten Government members and six from the Opposition. Four of the Opposition members are from the official Opposition party, the Conservative Party. There is one from the Scottish National Party and one from the Liberal Democrat Party. Like this committee, we do not vote along party lines. Since I became chairman of this committee in 1992, there have been fewer than ten divisions. Divisions are not necessarily on party lines but on matters on which members feel particularly strongly and wish to record their position. I cannot of think of any vote we have had in those ten years which have been along party lines.

What helps the committee achieve such consensus is that we do not look at the merits of what we debate. We scrutinise everything that comes from the Commission to Council, Green and White papers and what the European Parliament is doing. We particularly try to keep an eye on what our Executive is doing. When we meet every Wednesday to look at directives coming forward we make a judgment as to whether they are legally or politically important. If it is legally important, that is, it will have an impact on our domestic legislation, it is automatically referred for further scrutiny.

If it is politically important, that is, if there is any controversy at all - this is where the consensus comes in - we will refer it for further consideration. We will hold it back until we get further information. We will not just say there appears to be something that needs to be referred. We like to refer it for debate in the standing committee on the floor of the House when we have exhausted the avenues open to us to get information to assist in scrutiny. This includes me writing to Ministers asking them to explain. They need to present us with an explanatory memorandum, that is, the Government's position on every directive. Sometimes those explanatory memoranda are not as forthcoming as we would expect or do not cover the areas that interest us. So there can be an exchange of formal letters between myself and the Minister. There can be informal exchanges between our advisers and the departments. When it comes to the committee that is what is done. Then there is a recommendation on whether to clear it - to let it go to the Council Ministers, who will vote the way they like - or hold it for further scrutiny.

We have a power we call scrutiny reserve, which means that if we are not satisfied that the House has had an opportunity to consider an item properly and it needs more time, we will ask the Minister not to vote on it at the Council meeting. This is a difficult area because Minister's priorities at Council meetings, particularly at the end of a Presidency, can be squeezed so that they may be tempted to override scrutiny reserves. This happened more frequently in the past, but in this Parliament we have made it perfectly clear to Ministers that if they ignore the scrutiny reserve they will have to come back and explain to us and to the people, in front of television cameras, why they did this. It is good discipline, but there are times when Ministers, in view of all those considerations, must make a decision and stand by it. There are occasions when they will override a scrutiny reserve but when they do they must come back with some good answers.

The European Scrutiny Committee meets every Wednesday and deals with the same issues as this committee, including 1,200 to 1,300 directives every year. Of those we will consider further and obtain further information on about 300. We probably have 30 or 40 debates a year in which we examine an item further politically. We also have a fortnightly report in which everything we do and every decision we make is reported to the House. This report is now live on the Internet, which is a new development. This, it is to be hoped, gives citizens greater access to what is going on and the issues that concern them within the EU and the national parliaments.

I would never claim that what we do is perfect because we can never satisfy the need for further scrutiny. We can catch up as much as possible but there is always room to do better. We are always keen to listen to news from other member states, particularly through COSAC. That is why we are so keen to make COSAC effective, especially with the coming enlargement of the EU. It must be a forum in which we can exchange ideas about best practices. There are things we do that others may want to try and there are many aspects to the scrutiny processes of other member states from which we can benefit. If COSAC can be made more effective it will help us all in terms of scrutiny.

We see our role in this committee as representing the Parliament, not the party. I am a member of the Labour Party and support the Government on the floor of the House when I am expected to do so, but in the committee it is never a matter of going along with what a Minister thinks. Ministers tend to find out the views of their own members. I take pride in impressing on Ministers that, as I once said to Peter Hain when he was European Minister, I am like a haemorrhoid doctor - they do not appreciate me but I am here to help them. It is a good relationship and one which I recommend for the Chairman.

A bit of surgery is no harm from time to time.

I want to introduce the members of our committee: Senator Ann Ormonde, Senator Don Lydon, Deputy Seán Haughey, vice-Chairman of the committee, Deputy Barry Andrews, Deputy Michael Mulcahy and Deputy Mae Sexton. Some of the members are also members of the Sub-Committee on European Scrutiny.

I welcome the delegation and congratulate the chairman on being chairman of the committee since 1992. He must have the full confidence of Parliament to have enjoyed such a lengthy term of office. We could usefully learn from the way his committee operates.

I am not sure whether Mr. Hood knows the history of our committee. Essentially, after the rejection of the Nice treaty, which was a wake-up call for us, the Government learnt its lesson. It was the first referendum on a European issue that had ever been lost by the Government. One of the main problems discovered by the Government was the so-called democratic deficit in matters concerning the EU and, as a result, the Oireachtas Joint Committee on European Affairs was given substantial powers to scrutinise legislation and other powers for dealing with matters concerning the EU. We are learning from that experience. The new powers were given to the committee after the general election last year. We are endeavouring to reach out to the electorate to let them know we are scrutinising the legislation but I am not sure whether we are reaching them. What is the experience of Mr. Hood's committee in this regard? Is it connecting with its own electorate in the UK?

A general point about the European project is that it is generally perceived in this country that the citizens of the UK are not as supportive of the EU as we are. I am sure there are all sorts of historical reasons for it, but is the work of the committee addressing this issue? Is it getting through to the electorate to the extent that lukewarm attitudes towards the EU are changing? What other measures can the committee take to increase support for the EU generally? Has it dealt with that issue?

Mr. Hood

I would like to say yes but regretfully I must say that it has been a failure, certainly in the UK. We have tried to improve our accessibility to the citizen, which is as important as trying to communicate with the citizen. At times the political classes have their own language, perhaps more so when it comes to European issues. We are talking a language we just barely understand among ourselves, which means there is no chance of people outside the process understanding it. This is exploited by people who want to concentrate on the negative aspects - we hear in the tabloid press extreme views on both sides.

When I joined the committee 17 years ago, in 1987, it was hard to persuade people to join. I was in the Members Bar last night for a glass of lager, but 17 years ago in the Strangers Bar they would literally shanghai you - they would wait until you had had a few drinks and then sign you up to join the European Scrutiny Committee. Consoling your hangover in the morning, you would be told you were on the committee. That is how they persuaded people to join - nobody wanted to be a member. It was not a sexy committee like the Foreign Affairs Committee, whose members would travel all over the world solving everybody's problems but their own, or the Home Affairs or Trade and Industry Committees. The European Scrutiny committee met every Wednesday to deal with thousands of bits of paper and a long agenda. That was where we started from and the workload has not lessened since, but we are trying our best to open ourselves up.

We now conduct a lot more publicly televised sessions with Ministers. We have produced a couple of good reports and hold press conferences and we are now discussing how best to open ourselves up to the public. Given the nature of directives, consulting advisers and so on, most of our sifting and scrutiny work is done in private. We have three specialist standing committees to which we can refer directives for debate, and that is when the public is able to attend meetings in the House of Commons.

The politicians do not think this is a sexy subject, so citizens have been switched off as well and not many people want to turn up to listen to European debates. It is a problem for us all, and the Convention will hopefully address the issue of how we connect with citizens. I do not know whether it will have any success, and I wish it all the best, but it is a great problem for us. The outcome of the first referendum on the Nice treaty in Ireland did not shock the Irish but it shocked Europe. We are now living with the reality that if we ever want to change things in Europe with new treaties we must convince the citizens not only in those member states which hold referendums but in all member states.

Our Government's line is that it will not hold a referendum, but whether we have one or not we still have the responsibility of winning the argument. If we keep leaving this to the political classes and talking our own language we will have difficulties relating to the citizen. At the top of our agenda must be the issue of how we make our work relevant to the citizen. Everything we do must be relevant. If it is relevant we have got a chance but if we carry on with what we have been doing for years, I suspect we will not succeed.

Mr. Mark Hendrick, MP

There was a question about the relevance of Europe to the general public. In 1994 I stood in the European elections and was elected on a 40% turnout. That is not particularly good but given the nature of British elections it is not too bad either. Five years later the turnout was just over half that. I entered politics as a young candidate hoping to make Europe relevant to the people of my region, but when I campaigned in 1999 I knocked on people's doors and spoke to them about Europe. The debate then centred on whether we should enter the European single currency. People had a very vague understanding of Europe and thought that the whole argument about whether we should be in the European Union at all was still going on. Many people had not realised that we had been members for many years. It was a big problem.

Our Chairman, Mr. Hood, has covered a number of the points I would have made. I have been a member of our House of Commons committee for three years now, and when I arrived as a new member the Whips came to me and asked me which select committee I wanted to become a member of. I mentioned the treasury and trade and industry committees, to which they responded that I was on the European scrutiny committee. I was not quite shanghaied, given a few drinks and whisked away into a committee against my will, but even three years ago the committee did not have the profile it does now.

To the credit of the Chairman and members of the committee, its profile has risen greatly in the last three years and we find ourselves collecting evidence from the Foreign Secretary and Ministers from a range of departments. The meetings are now televised, albeit at strange hours of the morning or evening. There is an accessibility and transparency in a good deal of our business that was not there previously.

There is still a culture, particularly in the Council, of smoke filled rooms and back door deals but some of that is breaking down. The Convention was a successful attempt to open up a lot of the business by bringing forward proposals for a constitution and other reforms on the table of the Intergovernmental Conference. Things have moved on, albeit not as quickly as we would have liked. We have opened things up among the political classes but we still have to make that connection between the political classes and the people.

One thing the referendums in Ireland have done is make Irish politicians probably far more acutely aware of this than their counterparts in the UK. Some people are still calling for a referendum in the UK, mainly those who simply do not want the new constitution and do not want to be in the European Union at all. I would not say this too publicly, but we would find it very much more difficult to make a case for some of the changes we are agreeing to, whereas in Ireland, which is taking on the EU Presidency, politicians realise much more acutely in pragmatic terms that anything they agree to must be sold to the public in an individual referendum.

Speaking to Ministers here yesterday made me very aware of how important it is to get those messages across. They perhaps indicated the hill we must climb in the UK in order to make Europe that much more relevant to the people even though we are not forced to do so through a referendum process.

Mr. Michael Connarty, MP

I have been going on for some time about the difficulty of getting Ministers to see European scrutiny, particularly by our standing committees, as part of the scrutiny process. They think it is part of the legislative process because what really happens when we refer a directive for debate is that the Government Minister will then put down a motion and the purpose of the standing committee becomes one of getting that motion through as though it were a Bill. That means that members of the Government party go onto the standing committees not as an extension of their scrutiny role but because they are put there by the Whips to vote against the Opposition.

I go to these meetings sometimes if I can find the time, even though I am not a member because any Member of Parliament can ask questions and speak at them but cannot vote. The Government members basically sit there checking their mail and waiting for the end of the attack by the Opposition before voting for the resolution. I am quite interested in what this committee does in referring matters to subject committees. Our subject committees might become a bit resentful if the Chairman of the European scrutiny committee started firing business onto their agendas, but at least the people on those committees are there because they want to be. I do not get the feeling that people who go on the standing committees to whom we send our business actually bid to go on them. They are put on them by the Whips if they look like they have a light workload.

I am one of those who joined this committee by choice after being a parliamentary secretary. When I told the Chief Whip I wanted to join the European scrutiny committee he asked why because it does not really go anywhere or do anything. I would like to see a change in our system, but I ask the members of this committee how other committees respond to the Chairman of this committee sending them business. Do they do the business in the way this committee thinks they should?

We have not yet done our first annual review. We only started this process in October 2002 so our first report will be up to 31 December 2003. The committees take the work and reflect on it. They can call Ministers, civil servants, representatives of industry or whoever, or not call in anybody if they so wish, but they report back to us on what they have done. At the end of the year, we will say in our report whether we believe the committees have fulfilled their role. They do not tend to divide on a party basis when considering directives or regulations. Committee chairmen complain to me not that we are sending them work, but that they have not got the resources to do it. They do not realise that we scrutinise everything, with meagre resources.

We have a legislative right to send material to the committees, the Bill having been passed by the Dáil and Seanad. When chairmen ask for further resources, I tell them it is not the job of the Joint Committee on European Affairs to supply these resources. We will look at the issue at the end of the year. This is worse than the Labour Party conference - we cannot get a word in.

Mr. Hood

We have a Scottish Parliament now, and we want Europe and ourselves to relate to each other equally so that we can understand what is happening. I would tell member states what I have told the Scottish Parliament, namely, that for proper scrutiny, one must have proper resources. We have probably twice as many staff as any other committee in the House of Commons. We have a speaker's council, an assistant legal adviser, a senior and junior clerk, four specialist advisers and a secretariat. Yet if I asked Mr. Dorian Gerhold if he were satisfied, he would ask for more staff.

Although you are speaking of a bigger parliament, we must examine all the same regulations.

Mr. Hood

Exactly. A smaller parliament does not imply less work, and may well mean more. The key to scrutiny is that without proper resources one has not got a cat in hell's chance of keeping up.

That will be the opening sentence in our report.

Mr. Jim Dobbin, MP

The general thrust of the question was about the awareness of the citizen regarding the issues we discuss and debate. As we all know, many of these issues are very technical, dry and not very sexy. I sense that as debates on the bigger issues becomes more apparent, such as the debates on the proposed new EU constitution and on the entry into the eurozone, the public then becomes involved because of how the press, and the tabloid press in particular, portray such issues. I sense a generation gap among my constituents; the younger people have a better knowledge of the issues and probably feel more interested. In recent meetings with the three large pensioner groups in my constituency, they asked me to speak about Europe. That is because they are reading some of the nonsense in the press. One gets involvement at that level. Four people from outside my constituency attended my surgery last week because I am a member of the European scrutiny committee. They knew I was on the committee, so they came to quiz me on the two or three issues with which they were concerned. That is the first time that happened. There is a gradual awareness becoming apparent, but it is a very slow process.

I welcome the delegation to the committee. It is interesting to have this exchange of views on how we work.

The delegation mentioned that in scrutiny, debate is not confined to the content of whatever is under discussion, but stretches to the impact on the national legislation as well as the political impact. The members went on to say that they scrutinised about 300 items in depth during the year. How were these items chosen and what did further scrutiny involve? When items come before us in this committee, we either do not pass it on for further scrutiny, having decided that is not necessary, or we pass them on to the other sectoral committees for their comments. We tend to do that without recommendation. How does the delegation feel about that?

I was interested to hear that the delegation could tell a Minister that it did not want a decision made until the members had come to their decision. Is that in the committee's remit or was it a later add-on when the members realised that they could impact on a decision that might be taken by Government at European level?

Mr. Hood

We have always had that right of reserve. It was written into our duties that we could give a six week warning. It was a protocol of national parliaments. We managed to get that into the EU treaty. Hopefully, better support will come from the new draft treaty. We are assured it will but must wait and see what happens this weekend.

I explained that we have four advisers plus two legal advisers. They sift everything that comes through. When a directive arrives, it is viewed first by our special adviser, who tells us what part of the treaty it relates to, whether it relates to qualified majority voting or to unanimity, and what it seeks to do. There will be an accompanying government explanatory memorandum telling us the Government position. The advisers tell us whether it has, by communicating with Departments, managed to get enough information to make a recommendation. If they are not satisfied and want further information, they will seek it. If they become frustrated and feel they are not getting the response they should get from a Department, they will tell us. That usually results in a letter from me, formally inviting the Department to give us more information.

It is a sifting process, all the way down to the decision. Some 70% of material is cleared automatically because it is not of political or legal importance or is purely administrative or has been previously been dealt with. Of the 300 items, we might refer 30 which we feel the House has not had sufficient opportunity to debate. We used to prefer to have such matters debated on the floor of the House of Commons but we now find that we can scrutinise matters better by means of our standing committee. Mr. Connarty MP is correct in what he said, and we are currently negotiating with the Leader as to how we might improve our processes. Our standing committee has 13 members, with a Government majority. The Whips ensure that members vote on the Whip. These members discuss the merits and the policy issues rather than scrutinise, so the Government applies the Whip at the standing committee.

The Minister must take questions by members for an hour on the Government position on the directive. It is open to other members of the House of Commons to attend the meeting and question the Minister. Given that some members have particular interests, the Minister is liable to face more hostile questions in scrutiny from such members, as distinct from members merely pursuing the matter. This adds a little more quality to scrutiny.

The difficulty is that there are not enough standing committees. We need more specialist standing committees and are currently negotiating with the Leader to have five instead of three. The point is that one must have the resources to do the job.

Mr. John Robertson, MP

I am a new member of the committee and have been on it only since May. We get a lot of paper work about one or two days before we meet, which gives us a chance to look through it. In one case an emotive subject was raised by a Nationalist member of the committee. The Minister attended the committee meeting and was given quite a hard time by the members. In doing such work we have done our job, which is to get answers from the Minister. A Minister who cannot answer the questions must supply them later. We continue to raise issues. If there is a subject which a committee member feels is very important, he or she may raise it at a meeting and indeed push his or her views to the extent that the committee may split. The committee might then wish to summon a Minister and the issue could even go to a committee vote. The committee never splits on party lines, but in terms of subject matter. It is interesting that the scrutiny committee works in a way completely different to the European committee.

The work load is immense, particularly at this time of year. In the last few months the amount of work was unbelievable. I do not know how many trees in the Amazon basin have been cut down in order to print the material involved. Being new to the committee, serving on it and seeing how it works has proved very interesting. I can voice my opinions there just like every other member.

There was a question about people's involvement with Europe. Particularly in a country like Scotland, where I come from, there is a feeling that Europe is greatly distanced from the people. The constituency is Scotland as a region, and the Scottish people have great difficulty in identifying and connecting with Europe. No matter how often we meet the people as MPs, they still have that problem. It is important that we consider this, given that some of our representatives in Brussels cover areas which are as big as Ireland.

I welcome the delegation. Mark said that when he was canvassing in 1999, people he met were not able to discuss the EU issues current at the time, and barely realised that Britain was a member of the EU. Does any member of the delegation feel that Europe might be moving too fast? In Ireland we have had two successive votes on the Nice treaty. Politicians should lead, but as far as the general public is concerned, is there a danger that with Europe racing ahead, the centre will not hold? From our perspective as Irish politicians the difficulty is more immediate because Ireland is obliged to hold a referendum on the proposed new EU treaty. That is not the case in Britain, so perhaps the issue is not as immediate. People feel - though I do not agree - that Europe is moving ahead too quickly. We have only recently voted on one treaty and must very soon vote on another.

We talked about the electorate being aware of Europe, and someone said that we as politicians are only beginning to understand the language. It was also noted, quite relevantly, that it is very easy for anti-Europeans to pick a few issues. People are very suspicious. Mr. Robertson pointed out that the Scottish people see Europe as being distant and bureaucratic. Such terms put people off.

We have spoken today of legislation, scrutiny and other issues of huge importance, but we also need to look at the little things. Some of the directives coming before this committee are hardly sexy, but they can be relevant to people's lives. One such directive, on consumer information and the labelling of foods, came before us a couple of months ago. It related to low-fat or high-fat foods, those low or high in sugar, and so on. Such a directive is relevant to people and they would surely be interested in it. As committee members we should think along these lines.

We also have in Ireland a Forum for Europe which visits different parts of the country. During the debate on the Nice treaty its role was to provide information. I attended a few of its meetings, as did interested people. The Forum distributes a short, excellent and very watchable video film about Europe. Anyone who watches it would understand what is happening in Europe. It is important that this video be distributed to schools, if that has not already happened, and that people would have access to it.

Ireland will hold the EU Presidency next year. I have made the point at this committee, before the Minister, that this is another opportunity to make Europe relevant for people. If people are to see only the motorcades, or perhaps a lavish dinner being provided in Dublin Castle, and see no other relevance in the EU, they will be turned off. The outcome will be negative, not positive. I have suggested that community events might be organised. If, for example, the Heads of State were to meet in Limerick, communities and individuals might also have an involvement. One of the accession countries might host an evening.

This issue is very important. We must look after the major issues, but if we do not also consider the little things, the centre may not hold.

I join other committee members in welcoming the delegation, some of whose members I have had the pleasure of meeting at COSAC meetings.

Does the delegation often find that decisions are being taken in Europe that are almost new to the delegation on matters that have not come before the European scrutiny committee at all? Does the committee in such cases begin a fight back process asking a Minister what is going on and why the committee was not consulted?

Arising from the proposed new EU treaty and the proposed yellow flag system on subsidiarity, some form of co-operation should be developed by all the scrutiny committees of the 25 parliaments. If a proposal comes from a European committee and some people ask if it is ultra vires regarding the treaty, or breaches the principles of subsidiarity, we should have a reasonably fast way of communicating with that other committee. Four or five committee members, for example, might immediately say that a certain proposal appears to breach the principle of subsidiarity. Has the delegation any ideas about establishing such co-operation?

I too welcome the delegation. I have met Mr. Hood at many meetings. It is very pleasant to welcome all the members. I am not good at identifying accents, but is there anyone here from somewhere other than Scotland?

I agree with Deputy Mulcahy on co-operation among security committees. I am not a member of the scrutiny sub-committee but I have attended some of the meetings. The directives relate to all kinds of weird subjects, such as the blending of ceramics with metals, for example. Such a directive might seem to mean nothing, yet suddenly, a €100 million contract goes to some person. These are very complicated matters. Though our committee and that represented by our visitors are reasonably well staffed, I am not sure that either committee has sufficient staff for all the work. It is very important that this aspect be taken into account.

I know that there are Members of the House of Lords on the European Affairs committee. Are there any on the committee represented by our visitors, or is it solely a House of Commons committee?

Mr. Hendrick

I will answer two of the points raised. The question about the speed of change and whether the public can keep abreast of it is quite interesting. The speed of change is phenomenal. If one looks at the development from the Common Market to the EEC to the EC to the EU, obviously there has been an increase in the number of member countries. Next year there will be 25 countries, therefore the EU needed to evolve at the speed it has purely to administer itself. To advance to a Community of 500 million people is an enormous global achievement. Speed has been necessary to accommodate that. Nevertheless, it is virtually an impossibility to convey that sense of necessary speed to the public in terms of how the EU operates, what it does and what it seeks to achieve. That seems to have been the case in most if not all of the European states.

The other thing that blocks people from appreciating the relevance of what the EU is trying to achieve is the obsession by newspapers and the media in general with process rather than content. It is much more of a story to say that Blair is not getting on with Chirac than to say that on a particular issue this is the French or the German position or the British position, etc. In the same way much of the news coverage focuses on a clash of personalities, conflict of interests in terms of one flag being waved rather than another, etc. What is not being made available is a genuine discussion about the issues and what they mean to people's everyday lives and the public deserves better. What we get is personality and process. Unfortunately politics has generally gone that way. News coverage in the last British general election focused much on the opinion polls. Very little was concerned with what this or that policy would mean to the man or woman in the street. That is what it should be about. The media circus has hijacked the issues into a debate about process rather than content. Those are the two problems we face.

Mr. Connarty

A number of things arise from Deputy Harkin's question. The last part, about how to celebrate expansion, was interesting. I chaired a meeting, where I was substituting for Mr. Dobbin, at which Lithuania asked the countries in the Twelve to celebrate its entrée to the EU. I did not think the Lithuanians were talking about a big dinner. What they were talking about was an initiative that would let people see all of us getting together to celebrate our European citizenship. That has definitely got to be on the agenda. If it just comprises big dinners and speeches people will think it is getting further away from them rather than being relevant to them.

The reason I came onto this committee was that when we were in opposition a colleague suggested I might want to become a member of the European standing committee and convinced me it might be interesting. I went on what we call Standing Committee A, environment, health and safety and agriculture. I am from a big industrial community in Grangemouth and I found every committee meeting I went to relevant. If the meeting was on an environmental issue, for example, that was definitely relevant to a town with masses of chemicals when they did the thing about cleaning up inland waterways. We had a heavily contaminated canal and it became a major cause célèbre in getting it cleaned up, which we did. The problem is if one does not join the committees to be an advocate for the process one cannot connect what is on the EU document to what is happening back home.

Hallmarking and the fact that the Italians tried to get rid of it during the Presidency would have been a massive blow to Ireland. Ireland has a 10 carat standard that sells well in America. Ireland is the only country apart from America that uses it. Therefore it is a big marketing tool. We have the lion rampant in ours which would have gone if we had conceded to the Italian system. Issues like that can surprisingly surface which are very relevant to the business community.

Similarly, social issues such as the working times directive are relevant and all the developments coming through for the working population. We do not seem to be able to make that connection, however. We make the connection with our Ministers and with Europe, but we do not think how we can get that message into the public domain. One of the reasons is that we do not focus on business so as to make it public. We do all business in private. We should be more selective and recognise that such and such is very relevant to our people back home and there should be a public debate on it. Much more interest could be generated in this way.

On the Italian proposal, if it goes through, for a red card, the question implied is not clear. We do not know what X means. X means one parliament can use a veto to stop them moving from veto to qualified majority voting. That will give us much power. However, if it is a question of a group of parliaments, a hotline needs to be set up so that they can trigger off the process of veto, but three or four or five are needed to do so. If we do not have that every time we will never get the necessary numbers and will end up being pushed aside rather than getting more power.

Mr. Hood

When Deputy Harkin started her question she said: "Mark spoke about the fact. . ."As an old trade Unionist I thought we were getting a quote from Marx, but she was referring to Mr. Hendrick. She certainly got my attention.

Mr. Hendrick

As the only Englishman I am in the minority on the delegation.

Mr. Hood

I do not know why we do not have a Europe day or a European day or even a European Union day as a public holiday. It would be nice. Kids might come to know something about Europe if they got a day off every year from school and the mums and dads were getting a day off work. That might be a suggestion. I will claim authorship of it if it is taken up.

Deputy Mulcahy made an important point. We need to network. We have been discussing this and feel we should have bilateral discussions with each other on these committees. The Germans and the French have been doing it for years. COSAC only meets every six months and we should have an early warning system through that, but there should be some bilateral understandings between committees as between Ireland and UK committees for example. We are keen to look at subsidiarity and if we come across something we believe has failed on grounds of subsidiarity we will be screaming straightaway. When that happens there is no reason we cannot pass on our misgivings to our colleagues in Dublin. There is some merit therefore in an improvement of bilateral relationships as opposed to waiting for events to happen.

In response to Deputy Mulcahy's question, I cannot think of anything that has landed on us without our having prior knowledge. Plenty of things land on us that we do not agree with, but nothing has happened that we have not had a chance to look at beforehand. In response to Senator Lydon, a significant number of Scots MPs are on the European committee. There are two missing from the delegation, one a Scottish Nationalist who lives in England and was born in Austria.

It is a fine committee.

Mr. Hood

Bill Tynan, another member, has a stone in his kidney and was unable to come. There is a good representation of Scottish MPs on the committee. They are keenly interested. Regardless of where they come from if they are keen and interested, then the chairman will welcome them.

How does the committee deal with the common foreign and security policy issues? Our committee has a protocol on this with the Department of Foreign Affairs. It sends a confidential briefing to the Chairman on draft directives or draft regulations. This could be on the action to be taken to prohibit the Mugabe family from travelling or something like that. Such protocols only come to the committee after they have been agreed by the Council. The understanding with the Department of Foreign Affairs is that the Chairman can either ask the Minister for agreement to bring it to committee - in which case he or she has to agree - or can insist that the Chairman of the Standing Committee be briefed - in which case he or she has to be briefed. The other option is to file it away until it comes through after it has been passed. That is what I have done in the last year because all the issues were non-controversial. Mr. Hood, how do you deal with common foreign and security policy drafts?

Mr. Hood

The Minister would send a non-confidential letter advising us of the situation and we would deal with it. I should mention that since we revised our Standing Orders it is within our powers - although we do not do so very often - to refer issues to departmental side committees to examine. For example, if we think an item on justice issues needs an input before it is fully scrutinised, we will refer it to the Home Office Committee. We would make the judgment as to what to do with it.

The committee met yesterday to deal with the court of auditors report which we are bringing it forward to COSAC. After this meeting, we will have a meeting at 2 p.m. with the Minister for Finance on the Stability Pact. We will have a committee and a sub-committee meeting next week and every month we meet the Minister for Foreign Affairs before he goes to the General Affairs Council. The committee meets in both roles, as scrutiny committee and as a European Affairs Committee. The workload is quite heavy yet the resources available are quite poor. One of the legacies from Britain is a very good Civil Service but, by tradition, Parliament is underfunded. Traditionally our Parliament has very meagre resources but this committee has more resources than most yet they are not adequate to meet our needs. A commission to run both Houses of Parliament, the Oireachtas, will be established in January and instead of funding it by the supply Vote every year, the three year budget will come from Central Funds, in the same way as the courts funding. Instead of having to seek approval from the Minister for Finance each year, the Oireachtas will have an agreed three year budget that it will have to work from. There will be some leeway but resources are an issue.

We are much more proactive in examining European issues. I did not mention that the committee took a decision to meet four times a year outside Dublin. The committee met in Mayo and before our main meeting we invited participants from a number of schools to discuss regional development. A Minister and an ambassador were present for the discussions on regional development and the proceedings were videoed. When the meeting with the schools adjourned, the committee continued with the agenda. In Waterford we discussed fisheries, in Clonakilty, west Cork, we discussed tourism and we will meet once again outside Dublin. We sent a copy of the video to all the schools that participated, which gives pupils an opportunity to ask questions. As Deputy Harkin said, communicating on Europe is extremely difficult and what we have done is just thrown a pebble into the water.

It is often difficult to get media attention for the work of the committee. We had the Minister, the two Ministers of State, the Secretary General of the Department and all the senior officials in to go through the priorities for the EU Presidency three or four weeks ago. The Minister, among other serious issues on the agenda, raised the idea of sponsorship for the Irish Presidency - apparently this has been done elsewhere - but it was the only issue reported on the 6 o'clock and 9 o'clock news and in a main newspaper editorial. It is very hard to get coverage for the serious work of the committee and we have to reconstitute our work into nuggets that can be reported on in the media. We will have to report on our resourcing.

Mr. Hood

I think it is a wonderful idea to bring the committee around the country and we should consider doing so as well. As I said earlier, one picks up good ideas as one goes along. I hope the committee will pick up good ideas from our delegation.

On the issue of resources, quite rightly, the committee has to put the question to Parliament as to whether it wants the issues scrutinised. There are no ifs or buts; if Parliament wants matters scrutinised, it has to pay for the work to be done. There is no point in members complaining when things go wrong, or that Parliament is not able to look after the national interest by ensuring everything is done correctly and that members may not be aware of what is happening. The committee has to argue the case for the resources it needs for its work and let the Parliament decide on that basis.

Are there other issues Mr. Hood wishes to raise?

Mr. Hood

To be honest, I am more than pleased with the opportunity to have met with the committee. My colleague is prodding me because I have been arguing for some time in our committee that we need to improve our bilateral relationships as opposed to relying on getting together every six months through COSAC and the early warning on subsidiarity is an example where good bilateral relationships could be positive.

I really appreciate having had the opportunity to meet Deputy Mitchell and his colleagues.

It has been our pleasure to have Mr. Hood before the committee because his help was very useful in getting this process off the ground. Perhaps at some stage we may continue this discussion in the House of Commons during 2004 as it would be useful for us to see how business is conducted.

Mr. Hood

I would like that.

I see from Mr. Hood's schedule that he has a great many meetings to attend, so I hope he will have an opportunity to enjoy some of Dublin. Should he have an opportunity, we recommend that he have a Guinness which is made in my constituency.

That concludes the business.

Sitting suspended at 12.20 p.m. and resumed at 2.10 p.m.
The Joint Committee met at 2.10 p.m.
Members Present:

Deputy P. Carey,

Deputy M. Sexton,

Deputy M. Harkin,

Senator J. Dardis,

Deputy S. Haughey,

Senator D. McDowell.

Deputy M. Mulcahy,

In attendance: Mr. Seán Neachtain, MEP.
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