The next item is the briefing by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform on the JHA meeting.
Justice and Home Affairs Council: Ministerial Presentation.
The JHA meeting will take place tomorrow and on Friday in Brussels. I will briefly outline to the committee the outcome of the last meeting, which took place on 6 November. The committee will be aware of the topics under discussion at that one-day meeting as a pre-Council briefing was given to the committee by the Minister of State, Deputy Roche. General agreement was reached on a number of the proposals discussed. These were the Council directive on the residence permit issued to third country victims of trafficking in human beings and the decision on the European Union and Norway-Iceland mutual legal assistance. Two proposals regarding repatriation of asylum seekers were also agreed. These were the Council decision regarding refunding the costs of removals of third country nationals and the decision on the organisation of joint flights for removals.
A preliminary debate took place on the Council directive on compensation to victims of crime, focusing on the scope of the directive, the recipients of compensation, the injury giving rise to compensation and the amount of compensation. Some countries have no compensation system. The Irish State has a non-statutory criminal injuries compensation tribunal. I outlined to the Council meeting that in the case of the Italian student who was injured in Dublin, he was awarded significant compensation. I believe it was a seven figure sum. However, the State gives compensation for what we call special damages only, not for general pain and suffering. Other countries have different models in which they give compensation for pain and suffering but the amounts are tiny. They could be as low as €1,000.
There was an interesting tour de table with all Ministers contributing their tuppence worth on this complex issue. The size of the problem in providing for a general uniform approach was made clear. Holiday destination countries such as Malta, Cyprus and Greece would have significant problems in compensating, for example, two British people who get involved in a fight in a bar in one of the resorts and in which one of them sustains injuries. The question is whether it is fair on a holiday destination country to have to give money to all the people who get involved in fracas of that type. It is a serious problem for a state the size of Malta. Does it undertake to compensate everybody who gets injured, even by their compatriots, simply because it happens in that state? The Commission was impressed by the fact that it will have a significant problem trying to resolve this. In the Czech Republic the maximum amount of compensation that can be awarded is, if I remember the figure correctly, less than €5,000. Saying there is a uniform system is all very well but if it does not approximate to anything like compensation, that is another day’s work.
The outstanding issues on the asylum directive regarding minimum standards on procedures in member states for granting and withdrawing refugee status were discussed. These issues concern the designation of safe third countries and border procedures. There are two fundamental issues in this regard. The safe third countries issue is causing unease among some member states. With regard to border procedures, some states, particularly Germany, have executive procedures for people who are found within their borders. In Germany, the police effectively physically remove them without any process in certain circumstances. There is a good deal of difficulty in getting everybody agreed on that.
No agreement was concluded on the ne bis in idem proposal, which is that people should not be tried for the same offence in two jurisdictions. The Presidency will examine the proposal further. The question is arising as to whether the existing law is inadequate and whether this will add anything substantial to it. There is an existing doctrine of international law that applies in all member states, with variations between them, and the question is whether this proposal will advance the situation. It is not clear that it will.
Was anything agreed at the meeting?
There was agreement on the residence permit. The Chairman will remember that victims of trafficking were to be given residence permits if they came forward and co-operated with police investigations.
Yes.
That was one matter on which there was agreement. There was agreement on the Norway-Iceland decision and on two decisions about removal of third country nationals and joint co-operation on flights.
Turning to this week's agenda, the first item is a draft framework decision on the minimum provisions regarding the constituent elements of criminal acts and penalties in the field of drug trafficking. That is most important. The aim is to get a European baseline for dealing with drug offences across the European Union. It provides for minimum rules for punishment levels and for what constitutes drug trafficking. One of the basic problems in the past was the Dutch attitude to coffee houses and marijuana. There is hope that some type of compromise will be arrived at which will enable this to go forward. It requires unanimity and there was no unanimity between Holland and its close neighbours until now. We have no difficulty with that framework decision. We have been waiting for agreement to emerge among others.
The EU convention on mutual legal assistance will be agreed. We have no problem with it. Ireland will make a statement to the Council that it will comply with the requirements of the instrument subject to constitutional procedures. Legislation will be required to be enacted by the Oireachtas to give effect to the proposed agreement before it can be ratified. A Bill on mutual legal assistance is being drafted in the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform and the convention will be part of that package.
Within the area of civil law, the Presidency will be seeking political agreement on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council creating a European enforcement order for uncontested claims. In other words, if a person sues somebody and they do not, in Irish terms, enter an appearance or a defence and allow judgment to be entered against them, there will be a uniform system across Europe for uncontested claims against debtors.
The next item will be preparations for a meeting on the western Balkans, which corresponds to the former Yugoslavia, Albania and so forth. The EU western Balkans forum arose from the conclusions of the Thessaloníki Summit and among the issues to be discussed will be the follow up to the London conference on organised crime in the western Balkans.
In the asylum area the first item for discussion is a proposal for a Council directive on minimum standards for procedures for granting and withdrawing refugee status. That proposal has a deadline of 31 December 2003 for adoption on the agenda set out at Thessaloníki. It appears increasingly likely that the directive will not be agreed during the Italian presidency, as certain member states still have reservations on the proposal, and that it will fall to our EU Presidency to reach a final agreement on that matter.
Another asylum directive concerns the qualification and status of third country nationals and stateless persons, such as refugees or persons who otherwise need international protection. On that issue, it is expected that the Presidency is likely to inquire from member states that have difficulties with the current text, whether they are in a position to resolve those difficulties. Ireland opted into that proposal on 13 February 2002 and we have no outstanding reservations on the text. We are ready to go when there is general agreement on that.
It is also understood that the Council will be asked to note the conclusions of the seminar, "Towards More Orderly and Managed Entry in the EU of Persons in Need of International Protection", which the presidency hosted in Rome in October this year. That seminar, which was attended by my Department, was organised to discuss issues of protected entry procedures and resettlement in the EU of persons in need of international protection. The seminar is intended to inform ongoing work on this idea in the Council framework, which is required to report back to the European Council on the subject next year. The Italians have been keen on the notion of quotas and nation states' burden sharing as regards people who are in need of international protection.
Discussions will then turn to a proposal for a Council directive on the conditions of entry and residence of third country nationals for the purpose of paid employment and self-employed economic activity. The first reading of that directive has been completed at the working group but a number of member states have expressed problems with the current draft. The JHA Council will now ask the Commission to redraft the proposal following wide consultation.
The agenda also includes a report on the outcome of the eighth meeting of the task force of chiefs of police of EU member states, which took place in Rome in October.
The next item relates to the draft Council conclusions on strengthening Community co-operation on civil protection assistance. This is what we would call disaster planning and civil defence issues that fall within the justice and home affairs portfolio. There are conclusions before the Council for adoption following the forest fires in southern Europe this year. The intention is to draw from the lessons of the forest fires and other cases so as to improve the system and be better prepared for future disasters within the European Union.
Turning to immigration, discussion will focus on the establishment of the European border management agency. This is a body that is supposed to facilitate co-ordination between member states' national border management agencies. It is not supposed to be a super border guard. As the number of staff envisaged to take part in this agency is around 30, according to Commissioner Vitorino, it is not some huge European bureaucracy. It is a small co-operative body.
The mixed committee is the committee that operates the JHA Council members of the EU and the EEA countries that are party to the Schengen agreement. There is a work programme to combat illegal immigration across maritime borders. That programme attempts to achieve co-ordinated and effective management of maritime borders within a minimum time. While Ireland does not currently experience either a significant level of illegal immigration or trafficking by sea of the type under consideration, we do have an extensive coastline that has been targeted for other forms of clandestine arrival. That is an area in which we have an interest.
The next item on the agenda relates to two proposals that amend two existing Council regulations: a uniform format for visas; and a uniform format for residence permits for third country nationals. The new proposals seek to enhance further the security of documents by introducing biometric identifiers - microchips, in effect. The measures are on the JHA Council agenda for political agreement and have a deadline of December 2003 for their adoption, as set out at the Brussels summit in October this year.
The agenda for the Council also includes a number of A items which are for adoption without discussion. As material on those has been included in the information notes, I do not propose to make any comment on them. It is a fairly extensive agenda running over two days. I should remind the committee that I am the Minister responsible both for home affairs and justice issues. Consequently, I have to stay for two days and listen to two agendas on these occasions.
I know the Minister needs to get off to the meeting to discuss so many items and it will take a long time. If members agree, we will bank the questions for the Minister. I know that is not satisfactory but it is less time consuming.
I will be very brief, Chairman. I note the Minister is saying that he is busy and overburdened with work, but there is an alternative.
I wonder what the Deputy means. Is he talking about Deputy Deasy?
The Minister can interpret it in his own way, which, no doubt, he will, anyhow. The Minister briefly referred to the difficulties being experienced in obtaining a co-ordinated drugs policy across Europe and how it should be handled. Will he obtain a uniform policy across Europe? If so, does he think that our policy will have to be watered down to bring on board the countries he mentioned, which have a loose and easy approach to what they consider to be soft drugs? How can such a uniform approach be achieved when, for example, we have a law which states that if one is caught in possession of drugs for sale in excess of €10,000 there is a mandatory sentence of ten years? Of the hundreds of cases that have come before the courts, that has only been followed through in about 15. How does the Minister hope to achieve a uniformity of approach in Europe if we cannot even have a consistent policy on punishments for possession of large quantities of drugs?
The point raised by Deputy Paul McGrath is an important one. It seems to me that when the Minister and his colleagues go to European Council meetings, we are homing in on just two issues, asylum and immigration. Some 90% of such Council meetings seem to be dealing with these two issues. An ad hoc, patchwork approach is being taken and there is no policy in the area. None of the member states has a policy in this area, including Ireland. We have no policy on immigration and asylum seekers other than an ad hoc policy, which we make up as we go along. The Minister should raise with his fellow ministers in Europe the possibility of putting together a comprehensive policy that would examine these issues logically.
The Minister reported on the previous Council meeting but he will essentially be dealing with similar aspects in this area at the forthcoming meeting. It appears that we will have great difficulty in dealing with the issues the Minister has raised, including the introduction of minimum provisions on drug trafficking, because we cannot achieve minimum penalties. We cannot even agree on definitions of what constitutes hard or soft drugs and how each country will deal with them. It is fire brigade action from meeting to meeting and variations on the same aspects are coming up all the time. A consolidated approach is required to some of these issues in order to deal with them. I do not see much difference from what we discussed the last time, which was the removal and repatriation of third country nationals. This time we are looking at standards and plans for withdrawing refugee status, which is all much the same as before.
Will the Minister elaborate on the need to combat illegal immigration across maritime borders? That does not seem to be a problem for us but what type of clandestine activity, other than illegal immigration or drugs trafficking by sea, could be taking place across our borders? In the Council discussions, will the Minister have an opportunity to raise the fact that we are an island nation and, as such, are subjected to more of such illegal activities. For example, all the drugs that come into this country have to come from abroad and, therefore, we need special measures, including funds, to combat illegal activity across maritime borders. Are such matters acted upon at the Council or do the Ministers just talk about them? At the previous meeting, the Minister appears to have come to a decision on the easy items while there was a general discussion on the hard items but no agreement was reached. What is the value of us having discussions here if the Minister goes to the Council for a further range of discussions with no overall policy? The Minister does not know where he is going. A couple of nice items come up and he agrees to put our stamp on them, but when difficult matters arise he kicks to touch. The nice little talking shop then adjourns for lunch and the Minister flies home.
I do not relish trips to Brussels for the purpose of sitting through Council meetings for two days for a free lunch. I would much prefer to be doing business of a worthwhile kind, whether in Brussels or Dublin.
To go back to Deputy McGrath's point about the enforcement of our drugs laws, first, our law is compatible with the EU framework decision, we will not have to change anything. Sitting through those discussions, I know that I will not have to change one word of our law to comply with the framework decision, as it is likely to be adopted. This is about establishing a common floor across the EU and our laws are well above that floor. It does not cause me any great heart searching.
The Netherlands' cannabis coffee-house issue is significant from the Germans' point of view because they have a harder law on cannabis, yet their population is free to cross the border and purchase the drug in the Netherlands. Trying to enforce such a law in Germany where people are free to cross the border to Holland and purchase cannabis is problematic. Our law is not at issue in this regard and changing our law is not what is involved.
On the point about minimum sentences, I have said in the Dáil, and I will repeat it here, that that is the law as laid down by both Houses of the Oireachtas. It is the law unless it is found to be unconstitutional and reversed. It is not in some limbo and it is not open to the Judiciary to dine selectively at the Statute Book. If it deals with a case of that kind, it must do so fully. The problem is that in a number of cases we failed to cut off the loophole of allowing suspension of part of the sentence and we may have to deal with that issue under the terms of the Criminal Justice Act. We may have to revisit it and say that the sentence shall not be suspended.
Maybe it was a bad penalty in the first place.
Maybe it was a bad penalty in the first place but that is an issue we will have to revisit. At present, the courts have the power to suspend a portion of any penalty they impose. As I understand it, they are interpreting this law as giving them the power to suspend a portion of it. Therefore, we arrive at a situation where there is a nominal sentence in conformity with the offence but an actual sentence that is not in conformity with it. As Deputy Costello said, we have to ask whether a deterrent penalty of that kind is effective or whether a lower deterrent penalty of five or seven years might not attract a more full-blooded implementation. I do not know. That is an issue for another day and we will have to come back to it.
Deputy Costello asked about the asylum and immigration policy. An asylum policy is emerging from these Council directives at present. One of the problems with them, however, is that there is a unanimity rule at present and Ireland favours qualified majority voting on asylum matters in future. The fact that everybody has to agree to every last comma and letter in every framework decision is undoubtedly holding up the process. I share Deputy Costello's sense of frustration; it is frustrating that this is taking so long. There is no doubt about that but that is what happens when everybody can simply raise a finger and say "no". Currently, as we are dealing with 15 member states, any of whom can say they have a difficulty with this or that clause, it goes on to the next Council meeting. That is the situation we are facing. If QMV comes in this area, which the Government believes it should, there would be much more rapid progress towards consensus positions than exists.
I take on board what Deputy Costello said about an immigration policy. The beginnings of an immigration policy are emerging now in that, whereas now it is a matter for member states to decide on immigration, the Italians have sought a study on quotas. In that respect, the EU - not on the basis of a mandatory imposition of quotas on member states - would ask member states whom they would allow into their countries. A planned approach would be adopted involving how many people would come, and in those circumstances they can go to countries of source and say that this is the kind of orderly migration the EU collectively anticipates will take place. That is on the cards and the Italians have started the ball rolling.
I mentioned the framework decision on QMV and unanimity, but a directive governs asylum and immigration matters, not a framework decision.
On maritime boundaries, it is worthwhile remembering that serious people trafficking is taking place in the Mediterranean from the north coast of Africa to Malta, Italy, Greece and Spain. That is in progress virtually all the time. As with the boat people from Indochina in the past, there are hundreds of little boats constantly probing the defences of southern Europe. Some of the voyages have ended tragically with boats sinking and people being lost at sea. Those areas face a serious problem on that front. Recently, we were suspicious about one ship but we have never faced the notion of having gardaí standing on every peninsula with binoculars looking for such boats.
The Minister should have them on the streets at night.
We do not have that problem because of our location but Deputy Costello is correct in saying that drugs and arms are coming into Ireland from Europe. I raised this point with Minister Donner, my opposite number in the Netherlands. We have significant problems in Ireland which are directly connected to the drugs and organised crime scene in the Netherlands. While it does not all originate there, a significant amount of money laundering, firearms dealing, drugs transhipment and synthetic drugs manufacture seems to be centred in that country. That is a significant problem from our point of view and it feeds into the need for the Netherlands to adopt standards with which the rest of Europe can live.
Deputy Costello is aware that cannabis and amphetamine shipments are carried out on a highly organised basis and that a "lucky bag" of firearms is often included in such shipments. We sometimes take a totally myopic view of the world. In Britain at present, the use of firearms by young gangsters is a major problem and there have been a huge number of on-street shootings. Certain parts of Britain are facing much greater problems than we are at present. We sometimes think that problems only exist in Ireland and that this is a phenomenon that we, uniquely, are failing to address. This problem affects both islands and there is a huge range of weapons available to young gang members to use on each other, for virtually no reason, in Britain and Ireland. That is an issue we will be addressing in the coming weeks.
I hope the matter to which I am about to refer was not dealt with prior to my arrival. I refer to the proposal for a Council directive on conditions of entry in respect of paid employment and self-employed economic activity. That directive states that some member states have expressed concerns about the current text of the proposed directive. Is the Minister satisfied with that text and could he outline it?
One of the documents states that drug trafficking is a heinous crime. Surely it should be a serious or non-serious crime.
Did I use the word "heinous"?
No, and I am sure the Minister would not do so.
The Deputy is referring to the European Council document.
I was referring to the draft framework on the minimum provisions on the elements of criminal acts and penalties in the field of drug trafficking. Are these documents proofed in terms of their use of emotive rather than legal language? For example, the term "the Council is determined to fight with all possible means" is used in the draft framework.
Those are fighting words.
Yes. Reference is also made to the "intensified fight against drug trafficking". This is quite emotive language.
It is like something one would see in the manifesto of an Irish political party.
Like the promise in the programme for Government in respect of 2,000 additional gardaí.
On Deputy Ó Snodaigh's point, I understand that the Germans have a difficulty with the Justice and Home Affairs Council trespassing significantly on the area of employment. They believe it is outside our vires. It may be that this difficulty will delay progress on the proposal.
We are trying to adopt a common approach to people who come into the Union to work and to identify their rights. At present, Ireland allows the entry of, and welcomes, Filipino nurses, but do we inform their spouses that they may not work? That is an issue with which I must frequently deal. The situation is similar with students. If we allow people to enter the country for the purpose of pursuing a course in languages, in what circumstances are they allowed to remain and study? Should these people be allowed to work to support themselves in their studies? There is also the example of those who move across or enter the Union for the purposes of carrying out research. We are seeking to achieve a common approach in respect of such issues. A number of measures are under discussion in respect of those issues. These measures are aimed at bringing about a uniform approach.
The Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Noel Dempsey, recently visited Beijing to investigate the question of Irish educational institutions offering Chinese people the opportunity to come here to study foreign languages. Chinese students come here, benefit the economy in a number of ways, pay for their tuition, work hard and welcome work while they are in the country. Is Ireland free to develop this relationship with China without regard to its implications for the rest of Europe or should member states adopt and co-ordinate single approaches to issues of this nature? Those are some of the matters under discussion at Justice and Home Affairs Council meetings.
We have achieved continuity because we discussed certain matters at our meeting before 6 November and we have now discovered the outcomes. We look forward to the Minister's report on the meeting that will take place on the 27 and 28 of November, particularly in the context of the matters we have raised. I thank him for helping us to achieve the continuity to which I refer.
I thank the Minister and his officials for attending and for briefing the committee. We look forward to his attendance at a meeting in the not too distant future.
Sitting suspended at 10.57 a.m. and resumed at 11 a.m.