Joint Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities debate -
Wednesday, 27 Feb 1974

Disposal of Arrears.

Chairman

The next item on the agenda refers to the disposal of the existing arrears. This is something which is a cause of great concern to all our members. I have to give the staggering information that up to December there were 473 drafts of directives etc. received. As a committee we are seriously behind in our work. We are making some progress. The Minister has now sanctioned a principal officer for us. We have also the full complement of staff in the Library.

The Library side of our business is satisfactory for the present. We are still totally inadequately serviced by secretarial staff. We have had a visit from representatives of the Department of the Public Service, which is the new Department with the Minister for Finance at its head. This Department is responsible for all staffing matters in the public service. They have already begun a work study of the committee and their operations and they hope to have that study completed within three weeks and to report to the Minister. We are affording the representatives of the Public Service Department our full co-operation and giving them every assistance we can in enabling them to come to a decision as to what staff in their opinion the committee needs. It is also clear that the question of civil servants attending on the committee is very important. It is now in order for the staff of the different Departments concerned to attend on our committee and be of whatever assistance they can. The point about that is that they can attend if they are available.

Deputy McDonald

That is all very well but the thing I regret is that this committee is absolutely no help to those of us who serve in the European Parliament. I would ask the committee to consider at least some of the documents before they go before the Parliament in Europe. Some of them are ones we would like guidance on. It would not be necessary for this committee to report on them but I think we could have a discussion on them. Perhaps we could set aside one session a month for this. If the committee were to discuss the documents that are of greatest importance to this country it would be a tremendous help to us and we could then stand up braver in the European Parliament knowing we had the backing of our colleagues here. As it is you plod along your own merry way. I know the committee are doing important work but perhaps this other work could also be done. It would only be necessary to give these documents a cursory glance but it would be a great help to us. I do not know if my colleagues in the European Parliament share that view.

Senator Lenihan

I would not completely agree with Deputy McDonald. I do not see the role of this committee in the way Deputy McDonald does. We have a role to play in the European Parliament. The role of this committee is to examine the directives and regulations as they finally come from the EEC here and to ensure they are operated effectively, interpreted effectively, regulated effectively by the National Parliament in the interests of the Irish people. The two roles are separate. I certainly would not dream of burdening this committee with the role of advising those of us who are in the European Parliament.

Deputy McDonald

The House of Commons afford this facility to their members and it is obviously helpful to them. They even have briefs from their committee.

Chairman

It is also quite clear that part of the function of the staff allocated to this committee will be to afford a briefing service for our European parliamentarians.

Deputy Thornley

I want to support my colleague, Deputy McDonald. I am not asking that this committee should be turned into a briefing organisation for the ten people who go to Europe. I accept that the committee have a separate role but that is rendered rather tautological if only directives or regulations are discussed after they have been processed by the Eurepean parliamentarians, including the ten Irish representatives. In effect, the views of the committee on these regulations are too late to have any real effect on them except that which a very small country can have on the deliberations of their members in the European Parliament. Deputy Callanan, of Senator Lenihan's party, made the point yesterday that regulations and documents were not adequately debated by the Oireachtas as a whole. It seems an extraordinary thing that some sort of machinery cannot be devised to ensure that if the documents cannot be debated by the Dáil they can be debated by the group of us here so that we could have some guidance. There is very little point in sending ten of us over there to perhaps act in a conflicting and often an ill-informed way only to come back here and find that the finally processed document is unacceptable to the enlarged committee.

While I accept the dual role, the basic role of the enlarged committee is to supervise and look over legislation as it emanates from the European Parliament. I also think we have a role to anticipate defects which may arise in that legislation. There is much talk in Europe of a dual mandate as between the European Parliament and the National Parliament. Sometimes sitting here I feel we exercise a triple mandate. We are members of the European Parliament, we are members of the Dáil and we are members of this joint committee. Since being in two places at once is a difficult feat being in three places at once defies imagination. Deputy McDonald has a point here. I have listened with great interest to the discussion between Senator Robinson, yourself, Deputy Flanagan, Senator Lenihan and the other lawyers on the committee about the intricacies of the document before me. The fact remains that if we come across a really serious topic affecting Ireland in Europe and do not stop it in its tracks before it gets to the point where the only thing that can be done is for the Minister to go to the Dáil and say: " Let us annul this. Let us stop this ", the role of the ten of us is rendered virtually nugatory. I think this committee have a part to play there.

Senator Robinson

There is really no conflict between the functions of the Joint Committee. They have in fact been slightly misrepresented both by Deputy McDonald and Senator Lenihan. One specific function of this joint committee is to look at the draft legislation at the European Community level, that is the draft regulations and directives and the common policies which lead to draft regulations and directives. If we are doing our job properly, which we cannot do at the moment because we have not the proper staff, we would be performing a very valuable back-up service for the members of the European Parliament. I have the greatest sympathy with the delegates to the European Parliament at the moment. We send them out without any back-up assistance, without any prior debate either in this committee or in Parliament on these draft documents. If we are working properly in the Joint Committee then we will not have to direct ourselves specifically to members of the European Parliament. They will benefit from the discussions because we will be discussing these important draft regulations and directives. I agree very much with Deputy Thornley that the sooner we can get into proper functioning order the sooner we can consider these documents while they are in draft, while we can still have a useful view on them the more effective we will be. The delegates to the European Parliament can then influence the European Parliament's view through expressing our view and their view. We cannot do this until each sub-committee is working at full steam; until we have the expert back-up service to understand the implications of these draft regulations, for example, affecting agriculture, industry or whatever the subject matter may be. This emphasises yet again the absolutely vital necessity of having our staffing problem solved over a matter not of months but of weeks.

Senator Lenihan

The sort of staff we have talked about will enable us to do no more than we are doing at the moment. In order to do the other job, the full briefing, it is not possible without substantial additional staff. We are talking about practicalities. We just have enough to do a minimal job of examining the directives, but to do the other job we would need a fantastic number.

Deputy Staunton

I would broadly agree with what Deputy McDonald said, and hasten to add that I have not discussed this question with him at any stage. This Joint Committee is broadly concerned with the European Economic Community and not merely with directives or regulations which are coming before us. We are also concerned with the European Parliament, and our representatives are a link between the Parliament and our Legislature. It would seem to be very healthy that we should discuss in a broad sense those areas of activity which members of the European Parliament feel are of concern to them, so that they might be not so much briefed as aware of the viewpoint of the members of this committee. While I realise there is a staffing problem, we can engage in dialogue and express viewpoints without a large staff, and there is a good deal of work we can get on with pending the solution of the staff problem.

There is one other point. You, Mr. Chairman, spoke of the fact that at the end of December we had about 473 drafts of various directives before us. There is a test case in the particular directive we have discussed in relation to company law and the comments we had to make in relation to penalties. That is entirely historical because these things happened in June and July last year and were signed by the Minister at that time.

If we are to be effective as a committee speed is very important. Our approach at the meetings we are going to hold, hopefully every week from now on, should be to deal with the drafts coming in at this time, and, possibly at a more leisurely pace, consider those that are of a more historical nature. While I hope the staff problem will be settled to some extent, I do not think that is any good reason for not meeting frequently. Some of our sub-committees have not been meeting; at least I am a member of a committee and have not received any notice of meetings.

Deputy Callanan was quoted by one of our colleagues—I think by Deputy Thornley—in relation to comments in the House yesterday. Deputy Callanan was speaking about the Farm Modernisation Scheme and he spoke—and I have spoken in the House yesterday too—about the critically underdeveloped Western areas where the average farm is very small and where the level of income is very much less than in the rest of the country. He said there are large parts of the west and north-west which cannot avail of EEC aid under the directives and regulations which are coming before us. The directives and regulations of which he spoke are coming into effect now, but legislatively they came into effect about two years ago. We should discuss with members of the European Parliament whatever proposals are in train, and the consideration of drafts of directives should be done speedily if our deliberations are to have any effect.

Deputy M. E. Dockrell

It would be very desirable if we could do what Deputy McDonald and Deputy Thornley suggested in regard to our EEC representatives. However, in view of the fact that there are 473 drafts and that today we have discussed only one, we would want to sit here for 473 days, Saturdays and Sundays, holidays and Christmas day, and if we had the greatest back-up of people behind us, we would not be up to date.

Chairman

We might reduce the 473 to 73.

Deputy M. E. Dockrell

I wonder.

Senator Robinson

They could be assessed by a scrutiny committee.

Deputy M. E. Dockrell

There is 12 months' arrears of work, apart from anything that was passed since last December and anything that comes along in the period until we get up to date.

Deputy Thornley

Other countries do it.

Deputy M. E. Dockrell

They may have more people to do it. We have only fewer than 200 people to do it, and many of those are Ministers and one thing and another.

Deputy Nolan

Even if what Deputy Dockrell says is true, I am glad he realises the problem we have as European Parliamentarians with a dual mandate, having to look after the county council, the Dáil, the European Parliament, our own constituency problems——

Chairman

I suspect the county council might be just as important.

Deputy Nolan

There are so many proposals, resolutions and so on pouring out of Europe—every day you have an enormous post—that it is not possible to cope with them. I do not want to seem parochial in saying this, but there are proposals which issued from the Commission as far back as last May, June and July, such as the regional policy proposals; these are matters which this committee should discuss, so that we would know their opinion. This is very important when we go back to our committees in Europe. Then there is the proposal on tax harmonisation. There is a report dated 14th February which I received myself in the post this morning. We would want to know the opinion of the committee and the Government on, for instance, the proposal that there be no zero-rating in regard to value-added tax, whereby it would be necessary to re-impose VAT on food.

Deputy McDonald

Deputy Nolan and myself are now 13 months as members of the European Parliament, and Oireachtas Éireann has not spent one penny on equipping us to do the job. They do not give a hoot whether we get there or not. The Irish people voted in no uncertain manner for entry into the EEC, and I think it can be taken from that that the public expect that adequate facilities will be provided for the delegates who attend the European Parliament. As regards the Community itself, I would have expected they would at least make some effort to redress the very bad propaganda that we read on the papers against the European Community. There is at present a lobby building up against Europe. Everything conceivable that goes wrong in this country is attributed to the EEC. I am surprised the Commission themselves do not endeavour to set the facts straight.

In any case, surely the Oireachtas must face up to the responsibility of spending some money to provide adequate services for those members who must go to Europe. It is unfair to leave it to ten individual people to make up their own minds on this very important problem which comes before us. We cannot possibly continue to go on in this kind of situation. There were 473 draft directives before us here. At least the members of the European Parliament would benefit by a cursory reading of these documents by the committee. We could get through a couple of them very briefly in an afternoon. We would then be able to make a better case when we come before committees. It is not good enough to forget about the whole thing. I am not prepared to serve in Europe much longer unless we are recognised as filling a worthwhile role and unless some money is earmarked for proper servicing.

Chairman

I wish to remind the committee that we have a categorical statement from the Department of Foreign Affairs to the effect that the normal briefing of delegates to the Parliament of Europe should be done by the secretariat of the committee. That principle is clearly established.

Senator Robinson

We should not be intimidated by the number of documents to be considered by this committee. If we were to set up a scrutiny committee they could isolate the particular documents which are of importance and which have important effects for this country. These could be considered by the appropriate sub-committee. If each of the sub-committees met within the next few weeks it should be possible to determine a practical work load over the next while. There would probably be quite a small number of documents to read rather than the 473 mentioned. This breakdown would be of practical help to the elected members of the European Parliament. The sub-committees could report back to the Joint Committee. We would then be discussing these documents when they are relevant issues and when we can make a positive contribution to the final result. I propose that we should set up a scrutiny committee and divide up the work. These documents should be considered within the next fortnight.

Deputy Staunton

I take pleasure in seconding that.

Deputy S. Flanagan

I was going to second it, too. It seems clear that there is a big difference between directives affecting national and international parliaments. The Chairman mentioned the nomenclature of bananas. I expect other countries were interested in maize, olive oil and such commodities. Deputy McDonald mentioned the difficulty of continuing to serve in Europe. There is obviously a role which could be played in regard to policy documents affecting the modernisation of farms or the regional policy or agricultural re- organisation. It would be a great help to the members of the committee if it were decided that about 50 of these documents were really of importance.

Deputy Staunton

I support that. With regard to the 473 drafts I would agree with Senator Robinson and Deputy S. Flanagan that about 30 of them are of real concern here. There might be a few difficulties which would merit serious debate here. The suggestion is worthy of consideration. There are a few points I would like to make about the material we are getting from Europe. I know we are getting the Official Report but it is unwieldy and impossible to make a synopsis of unless one has a great deal of time. There is a bi-weekly report which is a fair synopsis of what is happening in the EEC.

Chairman

We have got sanction for two copies. I get one and the secretary gets the other. When I have scanned through my copy I am passing it on to the Library.

Deputy Staunton

Is it now available in the Library?

Chairman

Not immediately but it can be got through the secretary of the committee.

Deputy Esmonde

I have listened to a lot of waffle on this matter for a few months. I agree wholeheartedly with Deputy Nolan's suggestion. There are policy documents which it is vital to get hold of early on. We had evidence of that in respect of the regional policy. If any member goes to the trouble of looking at the Journal it will be clearly indicated in the type of typescript used that certain documents require to be looked at. They are in heavy type. Deputy Flanagan referred to maize and olive oil. Some of the work should be done by a departmental committee. We are dealing with policy documents, the actual regulations and directives. These will become part of the substance of law and will have an effect on us. They should be the business of this committee. Deputy Nolan raised the point that these are of vital importance. If we restricted ourselves to these, with the type of steering committee suggested by Senator Robinson we could easily deal with the work and there would not be an unwieldy workload.

Deputy Thornley

I am glad to be present at this discussion and to have an opportunity to talk about the workings of this committee and the delegates to the European Parliament. I want to refer to what Deputy Esmonde said. He said he was listening to waffle. What he has just said is one of the biggest pieces of waffle I ever heard in my life. If anyone thinks one can flip through the documents he is wrong. He obviously knows nothing about the working of a committee and the group system. If he knew anything about the working of a committee and the group system he would realise that it is possible for a perfectly innocent seeming document on an issue like olive oil to swim up before one's eyes and for one to make a profoundly wrong political decision in connection with the theory of alliances with the mezzogiorno which gets one into the most appalling difficulty with one's group and with one's committee. Unless one reads virtually everything put before one with a certain degree of attention one is capable of " open mouth, insert foot ", as the Americans say. This has happened from time to time. If Deputy Esmonde thinks you can go through the European Parliament only reading the major policy documents he has a great deal to learn about it.

Deputy Esmonde

I am sorry that Deputy Thornley may have taken an overdose of olive oil.

Deputy Thornley

I agree with everything Senator Robinson said except one thing. I think the nub of this is that 473 drafts and documents were mentioned by several speakers. Of those 473 there are, perhaps, 15 which are relevant to the Irish situation and those are the drafts I want debated. I do not want to worry about the problem of importing figs from Algeria, wine from Tunisia or something like that. Let the Italians worry about that and come to me and tell me what I ought to think. I want to find out about the 15 drafts and I think the suggestion of a steering committee is an excellent one. The only point I would make, the one weakness I see of the argument being put forward by Senator Robinson and Deputy Staunton, is that a simple steering committee composed of the over-worked 20 of us here will not have time to perform this job without sufficient staff. This is where I think the Minister for Finance is letting us down. You need marginal support staff with an awareness of European affairs and an awareness of French, because a lot of our documentation comes in French, who will do this sifting for us. If we conclude this meeting by solemnly electing five people as a steering committee and they do not have adequate support staff to plough through the pile of documentation we get, I think all we will have achieved is a token victory and not a real one.

Chairman

First of all, let me say that every document has to be looked at. As Deputy Thornley says, the most innocent seeming document can have implications and difficulties for us. We have found practical instances of exactly that sort of thing happening. A document may appear to have no relevance for us on its face but internally it may definitely have, so that every document has to be screened and sifted. Our original intention was that a member of the staff would be appointed and with myself would constitute a screening mechanism. We did not get that member of the staff to do that screening process for us. Pro tem we should therefore constitute ourselves into a screening mechanism until we get an adequate competent staff who will do this sifting process for us. I suggest that we might ad interim have the Oireachtas Committee, which meets very frequently, do this job for us. Could we leave that open? I readily agree we must have a screening mechanism of some sort and we have got to do it ourselves ad interim.

Deputy M. E. Dockrell

We must have it or we will have to wade through the whole 473 drafts.

Deputy Nolan

Earlier on I said that the two most important documents that will come before Europe or the Dáil are the Government White Paper on Taxation, which I presume will be issued tomorrow, and the Commission's Report on Tax Organisations within the European Community. Could this committee get those two documents and debate them side by side? Whatever regulations the Government may make on taxation in the short term may have to be changed later on when the Council of Europe make a decision.

Senator Lenihan

Those are two documents which are coming up at the moment.

Deputy Nolan

The two documents should be taken together, and examined together. I would love to have a copy of the debates when this matter comes up in the European Parliament.

Chairman

It seems that Deputy McDonald's point would be met, as Senator Robinson pointed out, if we were dealing instantly with the documents and drafts as they are published in Brussels, as we should be. We should be considering them in advance of their being debated in the European Parliament. We must aim at getting into that sort of situation. We must single out the important documents and have them considered as soon as they are published. In that way the European Parliamentary delegates would have the general views of the members of the committee.

Senator Lenihan

Coming back to the point I made earlier on, there is no point in talking about this unless we get additional staff. This is basic. We have the first job of supervising documents and we only have the minimum staff for that. It is not enough. If we are to do the job of advising contemporaneously on policy attitudes to the parliamentarians in Europe, we will need substantial staff.

Chairman

Everybody is clear that ultimately when we get fully operative the secretariat of this committee will be available to the parliamentary delegates for briefing purposes. Furthermore, if we are abreast of our work and have a sifting and screening mechanism in operation we should be in a position to discuss these drafts as soon as they emerge from Brussels and in that way be helpful to our parliamentary delegates as to their contents and implications.

Deputy Staunton

Could you arrange a meeting of the Economic and Social Committee to consider the points raised by Deputy Nolan because it has not met yet?

Chairman

That could be arranged.

Deputy Staunton

Thank you for broadening the discussion at this meeting and making it into an open forum. While it is fairly all-embracing it seems to me that we will have one particular problem unless we do something about it. For the members of this committee who are not members of the European Parliament, where the affairs of this country are decided to a very great extent by European decisions affecting finance and so on, it is somewhat out of context when we do not get to Europe to see what is happening. I accept that the members of the European Parliament are au fait with what is happening because they are over there very often so it would seem desirable that the members of the committee who are not members of the European Parliament should have the opportunity of visiting Brussels and Strasbourg reasonably often. It would be desirable in the national interest if they had the option of going over there four or five times a year.

Senator Lenihan

That is very desirable.

Deputy Staunton

We should address ourselves to this because if we are discussing these drafts and documents from the European Parliament, the EEC secretariat or the Council of Ministers, without being aware of the environment within which these decisions are taken, we are at a complete loss. Possibly arrangements have been made already to consider this but I think it is something that is quite pertinent in the context of the discussion we are having.

Chairman

It is and it is something that we can possibly do something about. I felt compelled to visit the European Parliament and see it operating at first hand. That visit, if it did nothing else, underlined the truth of what the Deputy has said. It is impossible to get a grasp of the whole mechanism and the import of things without being there to see it in operation. I certainly agree with the Deputy's suggestion. It is something I shall endeavour to follow up on behalf of the members, to see the European Parliament and to visit the Commission in Brussels. On that latter point there is a document which I do not think we will have time to discuss this afternoon but represents a matter I want to draw to your attention for the next meeting. This is the arrangements which another member country is making and the discussions which it has had with the Commission about documents and evidence. It deals with documents direct from the Commission to its Select Committee and evidence to be given by the Commission to the Select Committee. Some very important things have happened in that regard. I think it is important that we look at this.

Senator Robinson

I want to raise a matter on that which I think it is proper to raise now while we are considering the work load of the various sub-committees, and how we can make ourselves relevant. I have been approached by some members of the Association of Registered Patent Agents about the draft conventions on patents. I would hope that this is a matter that might be considered by the Oireachtas sub-committee. There are two of these conventions. The first is called the European Patents Convention which was signed in Munich in October and involves 14 states, more than just the member states of the Community; and the second Convention is confined to member states of the Community.

If I might just briefly outline the problem; the most damaging or potentially damaging feature of the second draft Patent Convention—which will affect the member states of the Common Market—is that all of the EEC states will be designated automatically in this Convention. This means, for example, that if a company wants European patents to cover France, Germany, Britain and Italy, it must also cover the other five EEC countries. The result will be that tens of thousands of patents giving exclusive rights in Ireland will be held by companies who have no interest in Ireland and have no intention of operating their invention in Ireland, and probably would not have sought patents in Ireland at all if the convention had not obliged them to do so. As it stands at the moment, this second draft convention is due to be considered and finalised in May. I think it ought to be considered by the appropriate sub-committee and ultimately by this joint committee, because the implementation of the second convention would mean an increase from the present rate of about 2,500 Irish patent applications per year to an estimated rate of 40,000 European patent applications per year, taking effect in Ireland. The result of this would be that only a very minute proportion of these patents would be owned by Irish companies. They would be owned by outsiders, and this could have a very serious effect on Irish companies and on inventiveness in Irish industry. This is a precise and important area where we could express a view which would have an impact while the matter is still wide open.

This convention will not be finalised until May. It need not be brought into effect at the same time as the first convention. I think the fear expressed by the patent agents and others concerned is that the two conventions will come into effect together, whereas they would prefer a substantial period before the second convention comes into operation. They would prefer that Ireland be not designated automatically with the other member states. We are a small country and we have to protect our interests, particularly our industrial interests, and this is a concrete way in which we can do it. Therefore, just as Deputy Nolan asks that the question of the harmonisation of tax be referred to the Economic and Social Committee, I would ask that the question of the draft patent conventions be referred to the Oireachtas sub-committee for consideration and that in a very short time they report back to this committee.

Chairman

And we could arrange——

Senator Robinson

It would be very helpful if we could arrange for members of the Association of Patent Agents to come and give evidence.