Private Business. - European Communities (Amendment) Bill, 1973: Committee and Final Stages. – Seanad Éireann (13th Seanad) – Thursday, 26 Jul 1973

Private Business. - European Communities (Amendment) Bill, 1973: Committee and Final Stages.

Question proposed: "That section 1 stand part of the Bill."

Mr. Yeats

This section concerns the amendment of the regulations. I take the Minister's point that secondary legislation as such does not lend itself to amendment. I quite agree. Thinking back now to the 22 EEC regulations that we enacted a month or so ago in this House, there were a number of those that were secondary legislation in the true sense of the word, detailed, highly technical matters, not of fundamental importance but with very little policy content. I quite see that no amendment would lie there. Indeed, I cannot think that any Committee would either want to amend them or indeed to nullify them.

There were, on the other hand, a number of other regulations which, strictly speaking, were not secondary legislation but which were precisely the type of thing that over the years we have discussed over and over again in this House. For example, regulations interesting people who sell eggs and so on, with provision for criminal penalties, for giving people licences to sell eggs, withdrawing the licences and all this kind of thing. We have had complete statutes before this House dealing with these things. These are not in any normal sense of the word secondary legislation and thereby I think they do lend themselves far more to amendment.

The second point is a very minor matter of the other resolution. Again, I take the Minister's point that a resolution is clearly not a binding thing but then, on the other hand, let us consider the functions of the Committee. It is to deal with regulations, directives and decisions. Clearly, all those are binding in one form or another. Why they cannot call them by all the same name I cannot imagine. Then there are recommendations and opinions. I hesitate to translate the gobbledegook of the EEC. It may be that in EEC terms a recommendation and opinion is also binding, but somehow I doubt it.

Mrs. Robinson

It is not binding.

Mr. Yeats

Offhand, it seems to me that a resolution could conveniently sit in along with a recommendation and an opinion.

This brings me to the question of these general debates. I had intended when I spoke on the Second Reading to deal with this question. Senator Robinson suggested that the Committee might consider these big broad issues such as regional policy. I am inclined to be against that. These are not matters of secondary legislation and the Committee has been called, I think rightly, the Committee on Secondary Legislation of the European Communities. I think these general policy debates on social affairs, regional policy and all these matters should be in either the Seanad or the Dáil. They are strictly policy, political matters. It would be very valuable if we could have debates in one House or the other. Possibly the Seanad would have more time and perhaps more inclination. Debates of this kind would be very valuable, but I am not sure that they would be useful for the Committee. They would clog the work of the Committee and they have enough to do as it is. I think perhaps it is not really a function of the Committee.

Dr. FitzGerald

Senator Yeats has left me a little high and dry. I was with him up to a point, but I am now wondering what exactly he wants the Committee to do and not to do. He wanted them to be able to consider a resolution which is not binding, but he does not want them to consider a programme which is not binding. It is hard for me to see the line of demarcation.

It seems to me it would be unfortunate if the Committee felt themselves prohibited from considering any document published as a draft by the Commission and expressing their views to the Dáil or the Seanad and through them to the Government. That is not to say that there will not be cases where the matters will not be so important as to require a Dáil or Seanad debate. That debate should take place on the basis of the Committee's report or, independently, there should be a report to the Committee. I do not think we want to say that the Dáil or Seanad can never discuss anything of the kind.

It will be very difficult to draw a hard and fast line and say that "This is for the Committee" and "That is for the Dáil and Seanad". There would be an overlap, and that is a good thing because there is no harm in having a little bit of flexibility. I would prefer to be clear that the Committee could consider any draft document put forward by the Commission which could in its eventual implementation in some form affect this country, without prejudice to the right of Dáil and Seanad to do so.

I take Senator Yeats's point that some of the regulations which were included in the original list for the first six months were ones which were a very close equivalent to a statute to be passed by these Houses. The answer to that, I think, is in that case they should not have been regulations. What we have done here is to introduce in the second stage of the Committee's work, when they see the directive, the procedure to recommend to the Dáil or Seanad that that directive should be implemented not by regulation but by statute.

It may well be that that is the answer. If there is something which might normally be covered by statute, and so unlike the kind of unamendable regulations which the Senator spoke about in reference to other items in the list, then the Committee should so recommend to the Dáil and Seanad and the Government should try to have regard to such a recommendation, unless the Government had very strong reasons for the contrary. I think that is where the line should be drawn. Perhaps it was mistakenly drawn in the first six months, whether by this Government or the previous Government I do not know. We have an opportunity now to ensure that the line will be better drawn in future and that what are passed as regulations are matters which really are not suitable for amendment. Anything which is capable of amendment should then be passed as a statute.

Mr. Yeats

I must thank the Minister for his last remark which has at last, at this very late stage, cleared my mind as to one particular aspect of the Committee's functions which I never really understood—the precise meaning of his suggestion which he made some weeks ago that the Committee could recommend to the Government what particular form of action they could take. It has now at least become clear to me what should have been clear to me much earlier: that the main thing would be, if it is purely a technical matter, that the Committee would, one would hope, recommend that it should be done by regulation; but in other cases, when more fundamental policy considerations arose, the Committee should certainly recommend to the Government that it be done by statute.

On this question of draft resolutions and so on, the distinction I was making was that frequently we have these documents, usually of a fairly massive nature, stemming from the Commission on social affairs and so on. They do not contain any particular draft, directive, regulation or decision for the Council, but are a statement of provisions for the Commission's policy. On the other hand, we have a document such as this on the environment which contains at the very start what is called the draft Council resolution on a Community environmental programme. Then we have the usual verbiage to "Having regards", the "Whereas" and the "Whereof" and so on, and we get down to brass tacks at the end of the page: that the Council adopts the aims and principles of a Community environmental policy defined in the first part of this programme, approves the guidelines of the projects making up the programme for improving the environment and so on, and then we have the rest of what they have approved and adopted et cetera. Here is a specific statement. Whether it is binding or not, it is a draft Council decision based on the whole of this document.

Dr. FitzGerald

It is a resolution.

Mr. Yeats

I had not appreciated the niceties of the verbiage. There is nonetheless a clear distinction, even in the non-binding resolutions, between this kind of thing and the document which does not bear any such draft relating to the Council's approval, adoption and so forth of the kind this contains.

However, it is clear that there would be a sort of twilight zone between one form of activity and another. I am happy to hear that no objection has been taken to the Committee discussing these other matters because certainly the title of the Committee, the Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities, and the rather narrowly defined functions of the Committee would have suggested that it could not discuss these things, but it would seem from at least the Minister's viewpoint that the Committee as far as he is concerned can discuss anything they wish, which I suppose is the most satisfactory outcome.

Mrs. Robinson

I find a certain difficulty in following part of the submission made by Senator Yeats in that he seems to be in a sense contradicting himself. He has been referring to the resolution on the environmental policy and saying that this would be appropriate for the European Committee, with which I thoroughly agree, but then saying that other matters such as the regional or social policy should be excluded. But they would, in fact, be in the same form as that. I really fail to understand that, and I would prefer the attitude adopted by the Minister that it would be artificial and unreal to exclude from the European Committee the possibility of looking at the draft programmes and alerting the Houses of Parliament if necessary. But this does not at all exclude the opportunity that the Houses of the Oireachtas would have both when Ministers reported specially to them and also during the bi-annual debate on the report of developments in the Community.

There might be a further possibility of giving an opportunity to the Houses of Parliament to consider the regulations. This arises on section 1 and arises from the fact that it has not been stated explicitly to what extent this Committee will report regularly to the Houses of the Oireachtas. I note under section 1 that if the Committee recommends annulment then obviously time must be given, this must be discussed and if this is passed by a majority the particular regulation will be annulled. If the House reports without a specific recommendation for annulment and has interesting things to say on the regu lations and on the draft proposals it has considered will the custom be followed of allowing time in the House for a debate? This would take the place of the six-monthly Confirmation of Regulations Bill which, as Senator O'Higgins pointed out, allows for time being given for a debate of the contents of these regulations. It was a weaker mechanism for the Oireachtas, but it provides for this regular time being given by the Houses of the Oireachtas for debate. If we could ensure that the European Committee would report regularly, whether or not it was specifically recommending the annulment of a regulation, and that time was given to consider this report it would meet the need for that particular control.

Dr. FitzGerald

First of all, it is up to the Committee to decide how often they report; that is left to the committee. What the Dáil does with its reports is a different matter. I will make one point here. Criticism has been made of the earlier narrowness of the wording and that it casts doubt on the ability of the Committee to consider and report on matters which do not fall into the type of description of regulations, directives, decisions, recommendations and opinions. What may turn out to be the case is the Committee can consider anything they like but when it comes to reporting they could be limited to these. This may necessitate an amendment to the motion, but that is a matter which we can consider again when the Committee have a chance to look at it.

On the question of giving time for debate, Senators should recall that we do intend to have still the twice-yearly debate on the report. This was combined this year, and would perhaps continue to be combined, with the six-monthly debate on the Bill. There is not really any saving of time there. Obviously, some of the Committee's reports could be considered in conjunction with the six-monthly debate. If, on the other hand, there was a Committee report coming during the six months on a matter of some importance, the House would probably want to have a debate on it and the Government would be sympathetic to that.

Of course, in this as in other matters, the ability of the Government to permit debates of this kind fairly freely at the instance of the House or the Opposition would depend upon an improvement in the procedures of the Dáil and Seanad, and perhaps particularly of the Dáil, to speed things up. Reforms which will be proposed in due course and which might reduce the amount of time taken at present on some items, such as transferring them to committees, would release time for debate. Anything I am saying about the willingness of the Government to permit debate is dependent, naturally, on our finding some way to reduce the clogging of the machinery of both Houses at present by perhaps excessive concentration on Committee debates, some of which would be better carried on in a Special Committee. But that is something which both Houses have to come back to in the new Session when the Government put forward their proposals for reform of procedures.

The final point I should like to make in reply to what has been said so far is that on the question of recommendation there is an ambiguity in the word in this sense that, as I thought, the Coal and Steel Community recommendations are binding —they are the equivalent of the EEC directives—whereas EEC recommendations are not binding. So you use the word "recommendations" here implying it is binding. It is correct so far as the Coal and Steel Community go, and the word was necessary. I think, however, that the word "opinions" introduced here does introduce an element which is not binding. If we had been trying to limit it to the things that were binding, we should not have put in "opinions," and if we were trying to extend it more widely to consider programmes we should have put in "programmes." Therefore, I think the motion is in this respect somewhat defective and probably will have to be amended.

Mr. Lenihan

"Opinion" is a dangerous word in a definitive motion.

Mr. M.D. Higgins

It is not clear as to whether that limitation on the ability to report is a limitation which also extends to the publication of proceedings of the Committee?

Dr. FitzGerald

Could the Senator please repeat his question?

Mr. M.D. Higgins

I said I am a little unclear as to whether the limitation on the regular reporting of the Committee is a limitation which extends perhaps to the publication of the proceedings of the Committee?

Dr. FitzGerald

What limitation is the Senator referring to?

Mr. M.D. Higgins

The Committee will not report more or less continuously; it will report at pretty regular periods. What I had in mind was that obviously you will have serving on this Committee people who in considering a particular regulation and in discussing policy — which Senator Yeats, for example, is reluctant to discuss — will be offering different points of view. If we are to have an involvement with the Community it would help greatly if the proceedings of the Committee were published rather quickly so that they would become a matter of public scrutiny.

Dr. FitzGerald

This suggestion was made either here or in the other House at an earlier stage and I would be very much in favour of it; but it is a matter for the Committee, when appointed, to make their own arrangements as to whether they want their debates to be public, whether they are to be reported and how they are to be reported. This is something we have to leave to the Committee.

Mr. M.D. Higgins

I am sorry to be tedious about this but, before people allow their names to go forward, there is another matter concerning the Committee. The point was made concerning parliamentarians in general in the other House by a Member that we might have a declaration of interest by parliamentarians with respect to anybody who may serve on this Committee. I suggest that it would be very useful procedure if Members who would be willing to serve on the Committee would declare their interests publicly so that the Committee would be above any suggestion at any time of lending itself to favour.

Dr. FitzGerald

That is a matter on which I could not speak. I am not sure if it is within the competence of the Minister at all. Of course, the normal obligation applying to every Member that if any matter is debated in which he has an interest and he speaks he must declare his interest will of course apply in the Committee as well as in the House. The Senator may be thinking of a general declaration of interest, like a general confession, before people would join. That would be a matter for the Committee to work out. Perhaps it is used as a more general principle, perhaps a good one, but perhaps something too general to be debated on this Bill.

Mr. Yeats

I have a feeling that if a Member had a commercial interest to push he would be doing it better in Brussels than on a Committee in Leinster House.

Dr. FitzGerald

Also, I must make the point that I think generally confessions of interest are very difficult because it may be at times difficult for people to remember in a non-specific situation what their interests are. I once had to try listing the things I am a member of — even in relation to being in Government I thought I should list the things of which I am a member in case there is a conflict — and I found I had forgotten several of them. I may still have forgotten one. In the process of discussing a particular matter you will immediately have present in your mind any vested interest you might have in it at that point in time. So perhaps generally confessions of interest may be a bit difficult for absent-minded people like academics anyway.

Mr. M.D. Higgins

I realise it is a requirement which affects many of us differently.

Question put and agreed to.

Section 2 agreed to.

Title agreed to.

Bill reported without amendment, received for final consideration and passed.

Mr. Halligan

In view of what we heard in the Minister's introductory speech on his proposals, seeking to be pressed by both Houses of the Oireachtas, on the question of the democratisation of the institutions as a prerequisite to the establishment of a full economic and monetary union, would he welcome at an early stage sometime after the Recess a resolution from both Houses requesting the Government to seek direct election to the European Parliament and an extension of its powers?

Seanad Éireann debate -
Thursday, 26 Jul 1973