Our next draft report is on the European Communities (Fresh Poultry Meat) Regulations, 1976 and here we are recommending annulment on very specific grounds. In sub-Committee we have been through what the Directive involves—application of general standards for fresh meat throughout the Community both for domestic sale and export or as intra-Community trade. We are recommending annulment because it is felt that the Regulations place unreasonable obligations on domestic importers and traders. You could have a situation where an Irish person would be fined because of something done or not done in another Member State and over which he had no control. We also feel that the method of implementation of the Directive in the domestic Statutory Instrument is unsatisfactory in that obligations it creates are not specified precisely. Furthermore the procedure laid down for the charging and varying of fees is reprehensible in as much as the former are not specified and there is no provision for control by the Houses over the latter. These issues are sufficiently important to justify our invoking the annulment procedure in the Houses. One of us will have to move the annulment motion in the Dáil and we will require a proposer and seconder of an annulment motion in the Seanad. It is most desirable that this matter be debated in the Houses. Accordingly, I recommend the draft report and, particularly, the recommendation for annulment to the Joint Committee.
European Communities (Fresh Poultry Meat) Regulations, 1976 [S.I. No. 317 of 1976].
Has the Department been consulted and, if so, what was its attitude?
Yes. It was consulted fully. There is a minute from the Department in the Appendix.
Is it Statutory Instrument 317 of 1976?
Yes. The Department's letter is in the Appendix to the draft report.
I certainly support the recommendation for annulment. Should we consider the mechanism for ensuring that the motions are tabled and are taken either on the same day or together in both Houses?
Both Houses have to do it.
What happens in that instance when there is a recommendation for annulment? Will they do it on the same day? Are these formulas known? Is it "hereby annulled" when it is moved? Or is it not hereby annulled because it is not annulled by the other House?
May I say that I will undertake to do the Dáil mechanism and perhaps we could entrust the Senator to investigate the Seanad mechanism.
It requires two Senators.
The secretariat has drafted a very simple motion for tabling in the Dáil and Seanad. It states:
That the European Communities (Fresh Poultry Meat) Regulations, 1976 (S.I. No. 317 of 1976) be annulled.
It is the same for the Seanad?
Yes. Either House can do it first.
This is our first recommendation to the Houses for annulment pursuant to our powers under the European Communities Acts.
Surely the annulment can take place once it is passed by the second House?
Does this particular Statutory Instrument go beyond what the Directive says?
No. It arises out of the Directive.
I have not had time to look at this.
The principal point is that the implementation of the Directive by the Statutory Instrument is done in such a way that any Irish trader who deals with fresh poultry meat from another Member State may be convicted of an offence if the Directive has not been complied with in the other State even though he has no control over the acts or omissions constituting a breach of the Directive.
The objectionable provisions of the Regulations in this instance are set out on page 2 of the draft report.
They say very simply:
(1) Fresh poultry meat which is intended to be exported to a Member State or has been imported shall not be sold unless it complies with the provisions of the Council Directive.
(2) Fresh poultry meat shall not be exported to a Member State or imported unless it complies with the provisions of the Council Directive.
That means that an Irish importer dealing with these products is made responsible for compliance with the Directive say in France or Belgium if he is to escape committing an offence. It is worth testing that point in the Houses.
What are the other countries doing in relation to this? There is a very bad row going on in another sector of our export industry in this regard.
I do not know.
Either way it is unjust.
Yes. Foreigners are getting away with it, getting their stuff in here, but we cannot get our stuff into their countries.
I think it is a clear case for testing in the Houses. If the Minister can defend the case, let him. We think it should be annulled.