I move:
The Seanad Éireann takes note of the report, Developments in the European Communities — Second Report.
Developments in the European Communities—Second Report: Motion
Under section 5 of the European Communities Act, 1972, the Government are obliged to report twice yearly to each House of the Oireachtas on developments in the European Communities. What we are now considering is the second such report for 1973. This covers developments in the Communities from the middle of May, 1973, to the beginning of November, 1973. Events up to the middle of May were covered in the first report.
I would hope that in normal circumstances the debates in both Houses on these reports would take place shortly after publication and certainly in the session during which the report is published. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons—the parliamentary timetable, my absence abroad, mainly on Community business, and the Christmas recess—it has not been possible to take the debate until now, almost four months after publication of the report. A number of developments have taken place in the meantime, the most important of which, up to 15th February of this year, are outlined in the supplementary report which was circulated to Senators on 19th February. The period covered by the supplementary report will of course be treated in full in the Third Report.
Senators will have noted that the second report has been expanded compared with the first report to include new and more detailed information—for instance, the membership of committees of the European Parliament, the frequency of meetings of these committees and visits made by Irish Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries in connection with European Community affairs. The report also gives a general indication of Government policy in regard to significant proposals; it describes where relevant what consultations on proposals have taken place with interested bodies here and it gives references to proposals and legislation published in the Official Journal of the European Communities. An important innovation has been the inclusion of an annex which lists the ministerial regulations necessitated by the obligations of membership of the Communities made under the European Communities Act, 1972, as well as under other statutes; Acts or sections of Acts necessitated by these obligations are also listed. The annex therefore provides a ready guide and reference to the domestic legislation which has resulted from Ireland's membership of the Communities. The annex, together with the other aspects of the report mentioned earlier, were included in response to requests made by Deputies and Senators in the debates on the first report; they will be a permanent feature of future reports.
An important development in the period under review was the establishment of the Joint Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities, which is the subject of a separate chapter in the report. The committee have begun their work and I note that a motion seeking the approval of Seanad Éireann for their first report, which deals with the Community's regional policy, is on the Order Paper. I also note that the Joint Committee have obtained blanket approval of both Houses for the publication of reports and other documents. It is both my own and the Government's hope that the committee will contribute an increasingly significant input on the part of the Houses of the Oireachtas in relation to matters arising before the Council as well as in relation to the implementation in Ireland of the secondary legislation of the Communities.
There have been some further developments in the Communities since the supplementary report was completed in mid-February. The most important of these relate to economic and monetary union, the European Investment Bank and regional policy.
At their meeting on 18th February, 1974, the Council discussed the economic situation of the Community in the light of the forseeable repercussions of the energy crisis and of the decisions which have been taken in the field of economic and monetary policy, in particular the decision of the French Government to withdraw for a period of six months from the agreement on the narrowing of margins of fluctuation between the currencies of the member states. Following these discussions the Council adopted the four acts referred to in paragraph 48 of the supplementary report. These are (i) a decision concerning the achievement of a high degree of covergence in the economic policies of the member states of the European Communities, (ii) a directive concerning stability, growth and fullemployment in the Community, (iii) a decision setting up an Economic Policy Committee and (iv) a resolution concerning short-term monetary support. The adoption of these acts marks an important stage in the realisation of economic and monetary union and is an indication of the ability of the Community to make important decisions at a time when it is coming under criticism for failure to act in a number of areas.
A loan of £4 million to CIE was concluded on 19th February, 1974, with the European Investment Bank. The loan, which is for a term of 20 years and at a rate of interest of 8¾ per cent, will contribute to the financing requirements for modernisation of the railway network. This is the fourth loan by the European Investment Bank for a project in Ireland.
The most disappointing development—or rather lack of development —as far as Ireland is concerned has been the failure to agree on a regional policy for the Community. We had hoped that the fund would have been in operation by the 1st January of this year but this was not possible because of the conflicting views and approaches of the member states. At the meeting of the Council on 17-18th December I made certain proposals which were designed as far as possible to reconcile the conflicting points of view. The essence of these proposals were:
(i) that the total fund be 1,650 million units of account; the Commission had originally proposed 2,250 million units;
(ii) that the net benefits to Italy and the United Kingdom be approximately the same as under the Commission's proposals; and
(iii) that the net transfer to Ireland be twice what the Commission had proposed.
In the event the proposal, which was received as an important contribution to the debate, was not acceptable to Germany which was unwilling to contribute a sum of the magnitude proposed even though this was 600 units of account less than the Commission proposed. At the most recent meeting of the Council on 4th March it was decided to postpone discussion on regional policy because of the political situation in the Community. It is hoped that the debate will be resumed at the next meeting of the Council of Foreign Affairs Ministers scheduled for early April.
I should now like to refer briefly to what has been termed "the Community crisis". This, being a development which lies outside the period covered in the second report, is not of course referred to in that report. Senators may wish nevertheless to refer to it in their contributions and I would welcome the views of the House on a matter which is of such vital importance and interest to Ireland. The "crisis" stems from a number of factors, some of which are internal and some external to the Community. Internally, cohesion and unity of purpose and action have not been fostered by the nationalistic attitudes of member states nor by the uncertain political situation in certain member states. The new British Government have indicated that they wish to seek a fundamental renegotiation of the British terms of entry. We do not as yet know what form the renegotiation will take but I should like to say that we shall make every effort to help Britain remain within the Community. At the same time we must and will be concerned to defend Ireland's vital interests in such negotiations.
Externally tensions have developed between the Community and the United States in connection with the energy crisis and the proposed declaration on US-European relations. In these areas Ireland has sought to reconcile opposing viewpoints and to ameliorate tensions both between the United States and the Community and between the member states themselves.
The problems posed by the long period of post-enlargement inertia within the Community, by the issue of renegotiation now raised by the United Kingdom, and by the differences between the United States and Europe, represent in combination a formidable package. Our interest lies in a solution to these problems that will bring about a strengthened, more united Community, maintaining the principles and mechanisms of its common agricultural policy, with an adequate and balanced regional policy and linked with the United States by a relationship of friendship in equality. For Europe and the USA share common interests and a common commitment to a democratic system of government. We shall pursue this Irish, and European, interest in the months ahead with determination, and, I hope, with eventual success.
First of all, taking the last point made by the Minister— the present state of concern within the Community—there is no harm in restating that as far as a small country such as Ireland is concerned the benefits of membership of the Community are enormous. Larger countries such as Britain and France could be considered to be in a position to go it alone. As far as we in Ireland are concerned, it is absolutely essential for us to be involved in this substantial market in which we are participating regularly in the making of policy. I want to say this because people here sometimes take the notion that if we do not get our way altogether this in some way is a reason why we should not have joined the Community. I want to refute that attitude absolutely.
Apart from the immediate, practical benefits last year, as the Minister said in his replying speech in the Dáil, the benefits apart from the agricultural benefits amounted financially to about £50 million. If one were to add in the agricultural benefits and quantify them properly the total figure would be around £100 million or something of that order. That is at the practical level of financial gain last year. The contemplation of the situation we would be in now if we were outside the Community is so appalling that one would not even seek to try to quantify it. I am speaking about the situation where we would be outside the substantial European and agricultural markets.
One of the most heartening developments in the past 12 months has been the substantial increase in industrial exports to Europe so that we are now coming near a fifty-fifty situation in regard to our export position between the British market and markets outside Britain. That development in the past 12 months has been very heartening because there were people who foresaw doom in regard to our prospects of industrial expansion. Those people have been refuted absolutely, mainly by reason of the competitiveness of Irish industry which used the various aids and incentives offered by the State over the past number of years to put themselves into a competitive position in time for our entry by 1st January, 1973. That competitive situation has generated a substantial increase in our industrial exports to the Community. It is making this economy as a whole much less dependent than it was heretofore on agricultural exports.
The sort of situation we would be in at the moment outside the Community—for instance, trying to pay the milk bill to our dairy farmers—is so appalling that one could not contemplate it. I mention this because it is important now and again to restate these self-evident facts. It is easy when discussing the problems with which I propose to deal now to say: "Why did we take all these problems on ourselves?" We would always have problems in any form of grouping in which we involve ourselves as indeed on our own. I would say the fundamental matter is that on our own in the present situation where the whole of the world is gradually developing into various blocs of one kind or another—Chinese, Far Eastern, African, South American, North American, Russian—our greatest guarantee as a small country depending primarily on exports for survival is to be involved in a community of nations with whom we have real affinities, and for us the one obvious bloc is the European Economic Community.
Therefore it benefits us as a small nation to a far greater degree in terms of proportion and percentage than it benefits the larger countries such as Britain, France and Germany. I want to emphasise that fact because I think it needs to be said. There are real difficulties in the Community at the moment and there has to be a restatement of belief and faith in it. I am convinced that these difficulties can be overcome. One way, which I would suggest would be the psychological way of getting out of the present straitjacket of pessimism in regard to the Community's development, would be to press ahead immediately for direct elections to the European Parliament.
I appreciate that there is an argument against this, the chicken and egg argument if you like, that it is not the time to do this in advance of greater powers for the European Parliament. However, if we are going to wait for greater powers for the European Parliament before having direct elections we will not have direct elections for some time. I do not think you can give absolute parliamentary sovereignty to the European Parliament; it can only be power sharing, but any power sharing between the Community's institutions—the Parliament, the Commission and the Council of Ministers—will be a slow process.
In advance of that we should have direct elections here in Ireland and in the other Community countries. The notion that Parliament is sovereign is, in my view, now a rather outmoded notion. We all know that in the case of our own Parliament once an election has been held and a majority of that Parliament elects a Government, in effect effective power is transferred to the governing executive of the day. Parliament meets— the Dáil and the Seanad meet—but the real power is transferred elsewhere. The influence of Parliament is not a crude matter of exercising power but rather the question of the moral influence the Parliament can exercise through proper reportage in the media, through debates with the various voluntary associations throughout the country, through the exchange of views for which Parliament should be the focus and the forum. Influence wielded in that way by Parliament is not a matter of power in the crude, executive sense or the old sovereignty sense of Parliment. That day is gone. We must be realistic about it. Therefore, thinking of a European Parliament in terms of the old notion of a sovereign Parliament having sovereign powers is just not "on" today.
The classic example of what I am saying is contained in American Constitution, where the popular Parliament, the House of Representatives, was never even from the day of its inception a power Parliament with any great degree of sovereignty. The House of Representatives is the least powerful of the institutions within the American system. Power has resided largely between the Senate, representative of the States, and the President, representative of the executive of the United States of America.
Coming back to my point, I believe if we are going to give force and power, in the moral sense—or influence to use a better word—to a European Parliament it can only come from the people through direct elections to that Parliament. At the present time there is an absence of this influence due to the delegated manner in which people are appointed to the European Parliament via national parliaments. In that way there is remoteness. The people are removed from the activities of the European Parliament. There is no real interest on the part of the people in the activities of that Parliament. One way to give real encouragement to one of the European institutions would be to press ahead for direct elections.
A former French Foreign Minister who was a colleague of mine, M. Maurice Schumann, has come out strongly on this matter recently. At this stage, when European institutions appear to be bogged down, this is one initiative which could be taken. By direct elections I mean having direct elections on the same day, by the same method of election, on a national system of election in every country in Europe. They should be elected directly by the people on the same day every four or five years.
The question of having a separate mandate for those attending the European Parliament would have to be examined as to whether or not the existing dual mandate situation could continue. In any such parliament we would have to watch our interests. At the present we are over-represented on a strict population criterion. Any such electorate would have to be on the basis of preserving the present shares held by the various countries in the Parliament and adding to them, over and above their present shares, some kind of population criterion in regard to additional numbers to be elected.
This is one way in which the European Parliament, by having direct access to the peoples of Europe, would lead to a greater understanding of the problems which face Europe. The danger in the existing situation, where there are difficulties and problems facing the Community, is that the public become disillusioned. People do not object to problems when they understand them. One way in which the public can become involved in the problems is by having their own representatives elected to a European Parliament in order to have a feedback of information relating to the problems, difficulties and successes as they arise within the Community. This remoteness in regard to representation, which is delegated by parties from within Parliaments, is undesirable. It is a remoteness inevitably involved with the Commission administration being an administration—and all administrations are remote—and a remoteness involved in regard to the Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers of various countries meeting to pursue national interests.
I believe that the real development in Europe will not be towards a Parliament with sovereign powers in the old sense, but rather a Parliament which will take part in power-sharing and will have a moral rather than a crude power influence. Side by side with that Parliament directly elected by the people of Europe, one can add the Commission as the strong authority which it is at present—and hopefully will continue to be so— and then the overall Government of Europe composed of the existing nation states on the lines of the American Senate, with equality of representation in the Council of Ministers.
I should like to state that in regard to our three main interests in terms of Irish interests, we are running into problems. First, there is the common agricultural policy which, by reason of lack of agreement on the proposed Commission increase—and I quote the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries on this—is causing a loss to Irish farmers at the rate of £1 million per week. This was stated by the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries in Brussels yesterday and is quoted in this morning's newspapers. We have also the further loss to Irish agriculture caused by the unstable situation in regard to the financial situation in Europe and the monetary policies and the lack of parity which exists within the European Community. This is linked with monetary and economic union.
This has led to suggestions of a green £, as it is popularly called, whereby our common agricultural price supports would be exempted out of the need for an exchange between units of account and our own currency and we would in effect be paid at a special rate in respect of payments to us under the common agricultural policy. I should like to hear the views of the Minister for Foreign Affairs on the feasibility of this proposal. There are difficulties for us here. It would put Ireland vis-à-vis our common agricultural price revenue in an exceptionally favourable position vis-à-vis other countries in that we would be allowed to get the benefit in regard to CAP of a preferential system, whereas we would not be paying the penalties in other directions for such an arrangement.
Basically speaking, while our £ is stronger now than the British £ and where there is a strong argument for our being paid in units of account without having to exchange them for sterling in respect of the common agricultural policy revenue, it is doubtful whether we would be given the advantage of being able to do this in regard to CAP revenue and not being able to do it in regard to our £ generally. We are moving into a situation where we may have to consider such a situation in regard to our £ generally vis-à-vis sterling. Whether or not terms of trade are moving in such a direction that it may have to be considered at a future date, it is worth studying having regard to our situation vis-à-vis Europe, our strong agricultural link vis-à-vis the common agricultural policy, and our growing industrial exports into Europe. It is worthy of study at the present time whether or not we should think in terms of having a separate Irish £ and not a green £. The separate Irish £ would be more logical, but there are serious problems attached to this. I should like to hear the Minister's opinion on the view advocated by the Irish Farmers' Association on having a separate £ in relation to our CAP revenue, called the green £, and whether that is feasible or not.
This question is associated with the whole question of monetary and economic union by 1980. We seem to be further away from that than ever. This is caused by the floating of currencies and lack of parity. The implications in regard to economic and monetary union have not been fully examined by the Community. The Minister stated in the other House that too simplistic a view was sometimes taken of it. I am inclined to agree with him on this. There are political implications involved in having a common policy in regard to economic and monetary union. Full integration in regard to economic and monetary union has political implications involving inflation, prices, wages and similar attitudes in regard to these three categories in every country in the Community.
There are political problems in having similar wage rates, similar systems of tax, similar systems of social benefits, similar systems of wage negotiation and similar systems in regard to price control. There has not been sufficient study made within the Community at any level in regard to the implications involved in all this. It is not sufficient to agree to have economic and monetary union by 1980. The position is much more subtle and sophisticated. There must be tax harmonisation, a common attitude regarding inflation, a similar system of wage negotiation and common wage and price rates.
Unless we have a system of that kind, economic and monetary union is not possible. This is apart from the fact that there are serious regional imbalances in the Community and these would be exacerbated if economic and monetary union were imposed without a positive regional policy that would build up the peripheral areas required to be built up so as to put them in a position of equality vis-à-vis more advanced countries. A lot more thought will have to be given to achieving economic and monetary union by 1980. If it is achieved on the basis I have mentioned it will be good for this country. It will be good for this country if we can arrive at a system of social and economic parity with these other countries through such a common approach vis-à-vis prices and wages and combating inflation and through a positive regional policy that will inject moneys into Ireland and raise its standard of living to equate it with European countries.
Make no mistake about it, economic and monetary union is not on unless there is an approximination in regard to the matters I have mentioned— the social and economic factors and the standard of living within our community. This is where the real crunch comes. But given the various factors I have mentioned coming into line then obviously economic and monetary union would be of benefit to this country but not unless that is done.
Viewed in that context the common agricultural policy is all important in relieving and redressing an imbalance that exists in regard to our farming community and other sectors of the community. Looked at from that point of view, CAP is essential; because if you remove the common agricultural policy and the lift that it is giving our farming community you have no prospect at all of rectifying the imbalances within our community in order to achieve economic and monetary union by 1980.
Another matter to which I have just referred in the course of discussing the common agricultural policy and monetary union, and which is linked with these, is regional policy. Here when the Community were put to the test they fell down. I realise the matter will come up for discussion again. I can appreciate the difficulties involved, but the difficulties only highlight the nationalistic attitures being adopted, particularly by larger countries which have really nothing to fear because the overall amounts involved really mean little so far as the three wealthly countries, France, Britain and Germany are concerned. I realise that Germany is the largest net contributor and that she has now adoped a stringent attitude towards this matter, particularly when she sees practically half the fund as originally proposed by the Commission going to Britain and France. Countries, which she would regard as strong competitors. This is a natural attitude on the part of Germany.
At the same time Britain in particular was over-generously treated in the original Commission proposal. I recognise the political implications here. This was a case of the Commission going overboard to induce Britain to stay in and not to start making noises about re-negotiation or anything of that kind. I hope that we can regard renegotiation as a euphemism for having another look at certain policies. I hope the look does not go too deeply into the policies as they affect us because the basic policy here—I do not have to spell it out in an assembly of Irish parliamentarians—which is being sought to be eroded is the common agricultural policy. It is plain as a pikestaff that whatever concession Britain gets from the EEC or will seek to get will have the effect, unless we protect ourselves, of diminishing the value of the Common agricultural policy to us.
There are various protections that can be devised. For instance, whatever subsidies Britain gives should apply to imported food as well as to homeproduced food. I realise the bill involved in that as far as Britain is concerned but that is one way of compensating the agricultural-producing countries such as Ireland for diminution of the value of their exports into a British cheap food market. That is just a suggestion. I am sure it is very much in the minds of our negotiators. We must be wary of what is euphemistically called renegotiation. The British are going to have another bite at the cherry and the bite that they will seek to get from the Common Market cherry will be a bite at our expense. We will have no bite but we should be compensated for their bite in so far as it affects us. It is as straightforward as that and I am sure our negotiators are well aware of it.
No doubt the Minister will press ahead on the regional policy aspect. This is one where an act of faith is required, more or less on the lines of what I was saying earlier about direct election to the parliament. So far as the public are concerned it is a testing point, a crunch point. It is one where the whole bona fides and validity and genuineness and sincerity of the Community and its institutions are being called into question. The sums of money are not large. In fact when the original sums were announced we were severely disappointed at the level so far as Ireland was concerned. The fall back from that position under the German pressure has been so fantastic that, even with part of Italy, Greenland and Ireland alone being included in the German proposals, they were at such a low level of 400 million units of account over three years that they did not give any advantage to us.
We have to fight a situation where the Germans want to give next to nothing on this. Even though they wish to confine it to the Mezzogiorno in Southern Italy, to Ireland and to part of Greenland, the sum is so small that we are no better off than we would be having a smaller percentage of the larger share originally proposed by the Commission. This is the sort of attitude that is being adopted where small moneys are being talked about. The 400 million units of account the Germans propose is less than £200 million over three years. The original Commission proposal of 2,250 million units of account is about £1,000 million over three years. That sort of money is very small when one considers the total European budget and the total GNP of the countries involved. It is very little money. Yet in regard to this small fund, this very meagre fund, we have this approach on the part of the various national governments which certainly does not show a real concern about the Community such as the founders of the Community envisaged and to which every genuine European aspires.
Other aspects that have been mentioned in the other House and which concern us here are, first of all, the Joint Committee that has been established under the European Communities legislation. The Minister is well aware that here again we have been disturbed by the lack of genuineness on the home front in regard to the European Economic Community. I have been critical of national governments and various Community institutions heretofore in regard to their sincerity in pursuing a genuine European policy. Here the ball at our own feet, in our own Parliament. We have had a Joint Committee of this Parliament meeting now for approximately six months and it has not yet been properly staffed. To put it bluntly, if you consider the sum of the meetings, they have been largely fruitless. One or two excellent submissions have been made, notably by Senator Alexis FitzGerald, the research for which he had to do personally because we just do not have the research facilities to enable us to examine the Community's directives and regulations. I appreciate that the matter at this stage is being taken in hand and that we are getting extra staff to provide a proper back-up for that committee. I understand that this is being done but it certainly did not show any anxiety for expedition in the matter when we had to wait six months to achieve this situation.
By the way—and I was glad to note that the Minister admitted to it in his Second Stage reply in the other House—I always took the view that it was a mistake to link the back-up needs of the European Parliament with the activities of the committees of these Houses. The two jobs are totally separate and totally different. The Minister had the view initially, I gather, that these should be in some way amalgamated. I always took the view that they should not be amalgamated, they are two totally separate functions, although we as Members of the European Parliament who are on that committee can serve a useful purpose. Basically the committee's function is to examine these regulations and directives, make sure they are in accordance with Community policy and have a look at any regulations or directives that are in the course of process through the Communities institutions.
That is a specific job. It has nothing to do with providing research and information or back-up to the European Parliamentarians. It is a separate day's work, and indeed I think it is an entirely different area altogether. Where you want research and back-up to the committee of the House is largely concerned with legal interpretation, largely concerned with attention to detail, examination of directives and regulations as they come through. What is also required is a legal administration to back up the committee of the House. What is wanted to back up the European Parliamentarians is largely a quasipolitical back-up. We want to know exactly what Government thinking is, what is Ireland's interest in regard to particular matters as they arise from time to time.
We had a regional fund debate in the European Parliament last November. On that occasion the Minister gave us an excellent back-up by sending an official from his Department to Strasbourg. This gentleman came out fully armed with the up-to-date position as far as the Irish Government were concerned. Everyone of us in Strasbourg got this documentation from him as an insight into what was in the Government's mind. I, as a Fianna Fáil representative, was quite open to reject some of this Government thinking, but at least I knew where the Government stood on the particular issues.
These two jobs are entirely different. I want to press the point on the Minister that if he is considering a back-up service for European Parliamentarians it is a different back-up from the back-up that should be provided for the committees here in the House. I hope that the back-up for the committee in the House will be expedited because, as I say, a six months delay is not evidence of a genuine regard for Europe by our own administration here.
What we have to fight all the time, whether it is in Europe or in Ireland, is basic bureaucratic inertia. This is a matter which we must always be on guard to ensure does not swamp us. It can swamp us here in Ireland just as well as it can swamp us in Europe.
I was glad to note the developments in regard to the European Investment Bank. There is no question about it that money like £7.5 million for telephone development at a rate of 8½ per cent and money like £4 million for CIE at a rate of 8¾ per cent over 20 years is very good value in this day and age having regard to interest rates. I would ask the Government to be far more active in this direction. We had a discussion here yesterday on the road network proposals under the enabling Act which we passed. I made the point that it is nonsense passing an enabling Act here to provide a proper motorway system unless we get down to the financing of it on a planned basis. I am not just talking in terms of annual budgetry allocations. They way to get down to providing a proper motorway system in Ireland is, again, to go to the European Investment Bank with an imaginative proposal staged over a number of years on the lines of the proposals in regard to the telephone and CIE developments but with considerably greater money involved. It would have to be a pretty large sum of money and at that interest rate would be good value.
Other matters have arisen in recent months which need to be emphasised. One matter which is not just a European matter but an Irish and a world matter is the growing power of multi-national companies. The damage that was done by them during the recent energy crisis is now clear. I am glad to see that at the Washington Conference the European countries took the initiative to have the topic of multinationals and their activities put on the agenda. These companies have now achieved a power situation where they can act without talking to major powers and can talk down to them if they are in any way taken to task for their actions. The French attitude in this has been right.
It may be said that the French are ultra-nationalistic in that they pursue their own ambitions and objectives without much concern for anybody else, but in dealing with the multi-national companies and in acting in that manner they have shown precisely what should be done by taking a strong, tough nationalistic line with people like that. They have been totally right in this respect and by making their own bilateral arrangements with the Arab world—I appreciate that they were in a strong position to do so by reason of their strong contacts in that direction —they certainly safeguarded France's fuel and power situation during the energy crisis. I think we might take a leaf out of their book.
It is no harm to have a nationalistic approach from time to time, particularly in dealing with multi-national companies, who are faceless people with no responsibility to anybody. Indeed, vis-à-vis the Americans I do not see why—and again I take the French attitude to support it—we should in any way refrain from standing up to the Americans in regard to their attitude to Europe. Certainly President Nixon's words the other day were, to put it mildly, ill-advised. The whole American attitude is one of lack of understanding as to what is being done in Europe, particularly in regard to the common agricultural policy. They are totally opposed to it. That is one of the main policies the United States of America want to erode. They will endeavour to do this by influencing Europe in whatever way they can.
There were other matters mentioned during the debate in the Dáil which are causing concern. I should like to mention one on which Senator Killilea and myself have a motion here in the Seanad. That is the farm modernisation scheme. I appreciate that this scheme is in accordance with directives issued in 1972 but the Government should give us some assessment—I appreciate that this primarily is not a matter for the Minister for Foreign Affairs—of the effects this scheme will have on the people who do not qualify under the scheme. It will be of benefit to only a small minority of our farmers. If up to 20 per cent of them come within the ambit of the farm modernisation scheme it will be the limit of it.
There will be 70 to 80 per cent who will be outside the scheme and we should like to know what is going to be done for them. We should like information from the Minister for Agriculture and from the Government about how these people can be helped. Under the FEOGA policy at the moment they can be helped to some degree, but at least there should be an appraisal by the Government of the situation in regard to this. I avow a farm management scheme. Any scheme of benefit we can get from the European Community is good for the economy generally. All I am saying is that at present it applies only to a minority of our farmers, that up to 80 per cent will not come within it. We want to know what are the policies and the plans for this percentage—the great majority of our farmers, the people who are involved in a real social problem. This is a matter for the Minister for Agriculture and for the Government generally. It is not enough to announce a farm modernisation scheme that is in accordance with Directive 159 of 1972. That is all right, but to come out baldly with that, without any statement of policy in regard to the great majority of farmers who will not benefit from it at all, is, to put it mildly, bad business and another way to tarnish the European image for this section of the population.
I should like to conclude on a note to which I have referred already— forgive me for coming back to it— but as a good democrat I firmly believe that we should have direct elections to the European Parliament before there is any question of power for that Parliament. We should think in terms of the moral influence that can be exercised by the people participating and being involved. We must press strongly for direct elections. I am doing this myself within a political committee of the European Parliament. We should forget about waiting for powers. There is a logic in waiting for powers. The sort of powers we are talking about—sovereign powers—will never arise in regard to the European Parliament. Why wait? Why not take action now and give the European Parliament, as one of the three institutions of the Community, some moral influence because of its association in direct elections with the ordinary people of Europe as a whole?
I agree with much of what Senator Lenihan has said. His contribution was an entirely non-political one and it is very welcome for that. It certainly made me think of how much better the debates in this House and the Dáil would be if we shed, so far as possible, a lot of the party political mythology that has existed for many years. We should talk openly and honestly, as Senator Lenihan has done, about the common problems facing society. I agree in particular with his statement that we have, as a country, a genuine interest in the success of the Community. However, this should be emphasised. People are very careful in their bargainings with men who are obviously on the make. We might do better for ourselves if we were more clearly dedicated to the concept of European unity.
We have had the experience of membership for one year now. It is a shared judgment that that experience, economically, has been a remarkable success. If that success has been achieved at some price, that price itself was to some degree underestimated; but it is a necessary cost of the real progress that has been achieved.
We must look at our own national character. Perhaps we have done better out of Ireland than we have done in Ireland. Perhaps we need the larger horizon. Perhaps we respond best to challenge. I take the view that we have people in Ireland every bit as capable as the Joseph Kennedy who went abroad and made an enormous success for himself and his family in the larger society under the stimulus of the larger challenges in America. The European Community provide us with an opportunity, which we are taking, of escaping from the client relationship which we had intellectually with Britain. With the 20th century nationalistic movement and emphasis on Gaelic revival and then the establishment of the State, our intellectual dependence on Britain seemed to increase rather than to diminish.
Thomas Carlyle called the 19th century "the age of paper". If you were only to look at the documents that come in from the EEC now you would be absolutely flooded unless you had a machine capable of destroying them quickly before they destroy you. Carefully guarded, properly monitored, they are in fact a great new source of ideas. It is obvious to me that our community is benefiting under the intellectual stimulus of membership of the European Community. I should also like to add that the idea of European unity is in itself good quite apart from our own interest. It has pacific intent; it is an attempt by this ravaged Continent to escape from the repetition of the horrible experiences which has marred its history. But notwithstanding these horrific experiences, Europe has produced this unique civilisation— diversity in unity.
The idea behind the Common Market as such is that there are economic benefits to be derived from such an organisation. These benefits go back to the old liberal theory that the larger the market the greater the specialisation possible, and the greater the specialisation the more efficient the production and the better is the distribution. In a curious way there is not merely increased productivity but a tendency to increase justice, too. This may be over-optimistic. There is evidence that the operators of the Community are aware of the necessity for the creation of social institutions which make the necessary adjustments.
The first report of the Joint Committee, of which I am a member and to which Senator Lenihan referred, is not typical of the kind of report that one may expect to get from such a body in so far as it refers specifically to the regional fund. It was desired that the importance of the concept of the regional fund be realised because without a regional fund the Economic and Monetary Union, which is the ultimate aim economically of economic policies, could not be achieved. A substantial net transfer of funds and resources will be required for regions such as Ireland, both North and South.
This State has been as concerned in its policy to get these benefits regionally for the areas North of the Border as for the areas South of the Border. It was the opinion of the committee also that the people would not have voted so decisively in favour of the Community were it not for their being encouraged by the thought of the regional fund.
This leads me on—if I may join my voice to that of Senator Lenihan—to the slowness in progress of the committee with regard to the doing of the work which ought to be typical of the committee. I understand that the Minister sanctioned the provision of a principal officer and an assistant principal officer. We have got the principal officer but not an assistant principal. I understand there is a report being made by the Department of the Public Service to its Minister on the great need for staffing of the committee. It is my view that, quite apart from this committee, the Members of this and the other House will not be able to do their job properly as parliamentarians. will not be able to achieve a proper balance, the balance that there ought to be between the power wielded on the executive side and that wielded on the parliamentarian side, unless parliamentarians are assisted by expert advice.
I know there is the old problem. I remember years ago talking to some one concerned with the establishment of a certain Government and saying it was a pity there were not more young people in it. He said we must talk in terms of the available talent. Similarly, I think the Government may be hampered by the amount of talent available in their desire to achieve this objective of strengthening the committee and making their performance so good that similar committees could get established to do the work of the Parliament, so much of which is not being done not through any real fault of the parliamentarians concerned. The view I hold, which I dare express here, is that the most untrue observation is that there are too many Deputies. To compare the number of Deputies here with the number of Members of Parliament in the House of Commons, and then to compare the population figures, is not the test. It is the question of the range of problems they have to solve, which are, perhaps, just as great in this community as they are in Britain. They are considerable and wide-ranging. For this reason Deputies must get the best possible assistance.
In this connection I have to tell the Minister, through the Chair, that this committee received a series of letters on various dates from the following Departments: Industry and Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, Lands and Health, all of which contain the following sentence in almost exactly the same words; "As it is not the Government's intention that officials should appear before the Joint Committee or any subcommittee thereof, except, of course, when attending in the company of their Minister, it is not possible to nominate any officers to attend as requested." I invite the Minister to consider the wisdom of that decision. There are so many matters to be dealt with. If one were able to have a direct confrontation with the people who are to give you advice which is being taken by overpressed and overworked Ministers, you would get your own problem solved very quickly; you would discover the reason for the advice. You perhaps change the advice, but you would get this direct meeting of minds which must be helpful. I would invite the Minister to consider whether this should not be changed.
In regard to economic and monetary union, there are the social fund, the regional fund and the European Investment Bank. Regional problems must be solved or there will not be economic and monetary union. We ought to be studying the sheer economics of large markets with particular relationship to our position. One of the clear advantages for us of the agricultural policy being pursued is that there is, because of the quality of much of Irish land, an element in our current receipts—what ought to be an increasing element in real terms which could in itself ultimately represent a real danger to the community—a rental element, a free receipt attributable to the quality of the Irish land. This is the sort of economic rent that the Liberals in Britain wanted to get rid of by adopting the policy of the Repeal of the Corn Laws. That in a sense is a good thing. It comes to us because of our possession of land of equality.
There is another thing. There is a possible industrial cost. This is the point I wanted to make. An industrial cost is borne by producers who produce at a distance from the centres of consumption. In an island, apart from the freight costs of getting the supplies from abroad, there is another element, the capital lock-up while the supplies, the inventories, as the Americans call them, are on the sea. The time of the industrial process is extended, creating an additional cost. Depending on the nature of what you are producing much of it must be on the seas. Our economic policy within the Community should bear in mind this industrial cost which will remain there.
I think I agree with Senator Lenihan on the desirability of direct elections to the European Parliament. There may be difficulties with regard to this. The Members of this House know the limited influence that they have because they have not got a direct mandate. We know, being derivatives of politicians, deriving our power, effervescent as it may be, from other politicians, that there is a limitation on our influence which is absent from the influence of Members of Dáil Éireann. Likewise we are not going to shift a balance of power from bureaucrats to parliamentarians unless the Parliament in Europe has itself the support of the popular mandate.
This motion provides a valuable opportunity for looking critically and, I hope, constructively at the developments in the European Economic Community. At the start I should like to congratulate Senator Lenihan especially on his excellent contribution here. It had the hallmarks of statemanship in every line of it. I am delighted to see that he continues to remain so involved in the European Parliament and in European affairs. Also, it should be pointed out that the contraceptionist lobby seem to have fled from the debate today. I feel singularly alone and naked in this row of independents when all my colleagues from the universities apparently——
Some of the anti-contraceptionists have fled, too.
——have no interest in this affair. It is a pity; as graduates of the universities we should take this seriously. As independents the part we take in general debates should show what we contribute, because we do not have the constituency problems of the regular party members in the Seanad who spend long hours at this work. We should make up for that by our reading, by our research and by the contribution we make here to policy, especially to European policy. I was proud with some others to take part in the general debate that advised the country of the necessity for joining Europe and voting yes in the referendum, even though, like many others, I did have very grave reservations on many parts of it. My contention was at the time that we had no option. That is still the case, but I hope we will contribute to the rediscovery of the European ideal, the great ideal in the fifties which was promulgated with such effect by the wonderful statesmen of that period, by de Gaspari of Italy, Schumann of France and Adenaeur of Germany—a trio who stand supreme as the most constructive parliamentary group, who made the most constructive contribution that has been made to European affairs or to world affairs in practically all time.
Unfortunately the Christian Democrat ideal seems to have been lost sight of completely in the EEC over the last eight to ten years and even more noticeably over the last year or so. It is time to rediscover; it is time to find that not by bread alone doth man live, that Europe does not live simply on mere economics, and on economic monetary unions and everything else. Europe can only pull itself together and become a force by reverting to the idealism of the founding fathers of the EEC. In that I call on the Irish delegates as befits delegates representing us to be especially conversant with the philosophy of the founding fathers of the EEC and to use every opportunity to remind the various institutions and bodies again and again of this magnificent underlying structure and to ensure that the superstructure is totally in accord with the magnificent substructure that was built for it earlier.
In general debates on the EEC we are at the receiving end. As Senator Lenihan has said, we gained substantially on the economic level in the past year from our membership. We gained substantially by the common agricultural policy. We are insistent on maintaining that. We also have a great vested interest, and legitimately so, in the regional fund and in getting more than our per capita share of that, simply because of the fact that we are underdeveloped and that the underlying philosophy of Europe is a Europe where all are treated equally, where the underdeveloped areas are given the opportunity and the means to develop. So we have no apology to make to anyone in Europe for insisting that we must get special treatment from the regional fund. That is the underlying philosophy of the EEC and for any European statesman to deny that is to deny the very foundations on which the EEC was based.
I realise that in the pragmatic world of today there is always the cynic who will say: "Well, what are you getting out of this?" Often the finger is pointed at us: "You are always begging". I do not think that is the case here, even on the economic level, because the major event of the past six months in Europe has been the energy crisis. There the absolutely powerless position of Europe before some Arab sheiks has been exposed. They have held Europe to ransom and Europe has no come back. In other words, Europe is totally and utterly defenceless in the energy situation.
Europe's first priority must be to increase the home input into the energy situation. There is where we can make our substantial contribution. We make our contribution, first of all, by trying to improve our own situation as far as possible. In that regard I welcome very much the recent announcement of the further development drive in turf production for electricity generation. Our bogs are being utilised. This is a distinct advantage to ourselves and to our economy, but it also is a major contribution to the European energy pool. Therefore, it is a plus on our side. There is almost the certainty now that the Continental Shelf surrounding Ireland is rich in oil and gas and that, indeed, its resources when developed will certainly be, by any calculations I have seen, away beyond anything required for our own needs. This could make a very substantial contribution to righting the balance of energy in Europe.
This after all is the main problem of Europe today. We hold the key to that main problem. I suggest that rather than look to the oil kings of the US and Canada to develop this, we should freely invite our partners in the EEC to come and develop this jointly with us. The money is in the EEC. I think especially of the German ability to contribute to capital programmes. If there are profits to be made out of this—and we take it there are—we want to get our fair share of the royalties. We are already endeavouring to negotiate a realistic policy on this, but that leaves a very substantial profit also for the people who risk the capital and who provide the knowhow for the development. Why not let the reward for the risk capital and the reward for the knowhow in the development be our contribution to Europe in general, so that we can say that, while we are receiving through the regional fund, and the common agricultural policy, we are giving economically on a large scale in the development of our Continental Shelf, which of course is something that we cannot develop on our own.
Frankly in this regard I would much prefer to have to deal with European capital and with European groups within the EEC rather than have to deal with oil kings of America or Canada who, as Senator Lenihan has said, or at least implied, fall into the supranational category which is becoming increasingly difficult to deal with for a small country of our standing. I am suggesting that this problem should be dealt with at the European level and I invite the Government, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs especially, to study what can be done in this regard.
We also have the other item in an energy policy, that is, nuclear development. Again it is recognised by Europe that for too long they have lived in a type of cloud cuckoo land by ignoring the urgent necessity for real widespread use of nuclear power. Here again we have quite a contribution to make because we are building nuclear stations. We could readily think of exporting quite a large section of the energy generated to Europe. Today it is quite feasible by direct current methods to transmit electric power over very long distances. It is no longer a pipe dream to think that nuclear power generated in some remote part of the west coast of Ireland could be transmitted to the mainland of Europe. In Europe they find it difficult to get sites that, on the one hand, are relatively unpopulated and, on the other, have a large supply of cooling water available. Certainly if we have anything off the west coast we have plenty of cooling water there, so these are positive assets. But more positive still is the case of energy. It is a more urgent matter to get on with research for production of nuclear energy by fusion because the present fission methods are creating problems through possible contamination, radioactive products and so on.
It is confidently expected that none of those problems will apply to fusion methods but it is estimated to be 30 years before there will be commercial production through using the fusion process. There are many problems to be mastered there, but I suggest that the European Economic Community should press ahead vigorously with research and we here should have a special interest in that. We could look forward to having a fair section of that research done in our schools, in our university establishments. We may say we are undeveloped or we have less material resources available per head of the population than other countries. Therefore on the regional fund we claim that sufficient be given to bring up the level in our areas, but that applies doubly in the case of our research institutions here who by comparison with research institutions in all the other parts of the EEC are totally under-financed so that they are as much undeveloped as some of our agricultural land or many of our other resources. Therefore in regard to the allocation of research funds in Europe our Government should press, and press very vigorously, on exactly the same reasoning as we are using in the case of the social fund, for the allocation to our universities and research institutes of far more than we are getting as a per capita share of the European research budget on various things but especially the European research budget on energy.
It is well to hear Senator Lenihan underline again the great strides that have been made in the past 12 months in industrial development where our competitiveness has been more than maintained. We have successfully competed and increased our share of the European market to such an extent now that, for the first time, almost half our products are going outside Britain. That of course is a necessary step on the way to a type of economic independence. Senator Lenihan made the point that we are becoming less dependent on agriculture, but I hope that is not the case, the past year has not been what it might be for part of our agriculture, especially on the beef side. It baffles me how all the experts 12 months ago were crying out for the production of beef. We were told everywhere we read, by everyone who spoke on it, that the urgent need in Europe was for more beef, that there was a shortfall of I do not know how much. Therefore, all inducements were being given to switch over to beef production.
It is difficult to reconcile that with the existing situation where there are over 40,000 tons of beef in cold storage, in intervention, in Europe today. Some was imported from the Argentine and elsewhere but, taking a realistic approach to world trade, that should have been foreseen. Those countries needed help too. Where did the calculations go wrong? The beef in cold storage at present emanates from calves produced two years ago; in other words under policies in operation three or four years ago.
Therefore, I query the present rush into beef production. Are the Government and the agriculturalists so certain that the world is capable and willing to absorb the beef production and willing to pay for it at a proper economic rate? There is a decrease in the number of cows in many countries; dairy products are reduced while beef production is being increased. Ireland's opportunity lies in a highly-developed intensive and widespread dairying industry. The dairying industry makes rather unusual labour demands. Its working hours do not commend themselves to the modern ideas of the industrial labour 35-hour working week. It is not commendable to modern labour. The cow will not confine herself to a five-day week. It is a difficult industry from a labour point of view. That being the case, the labour force manning the dairying industry must be paid at a higher rate for the unusual type of work they perform. We in this country have been brought up in the dairying tradition and take such inconveniences in our stride. Provided the Irish dairy worker can have his day off each week or half-day, have a replacement when he is ill and his holidays, he does not mind the staggered or the early and late hours. If we can modernise our industry to provide those minimum basic requirements, dairying and the difficulties attached to it will be acceptable to greater numbers of our people more so than to the more "modernised" people of the rest of Europe. Consequently, our dairying industry can go from strength to strengh. The ultimate future for us lies very heavily in dairying.
England—much as she would like it—can never again get back to the cheap food policy which robbed the producers around the globe. Her greatest contributor in dairy products —New Zealand—had a short-fall last year of 35,000 tons of cheese and also a significant short-fall in butter. Some of the farmers in New Zealand had changed to beef production. The alternative markets for New Zealand are developing and paying off at a realistic rate. Consequently New Zealand is fast losing interest in the British market. It is not likely that she will, over the next transition period of five years, avail of the quotas granted to her for dairy products. Whether England likes it or not, the days of cheap food are gone.
Beef is selling at £16 per cwt. today. During the term of office of the last Coalition Government—1954 to 1957 —the boast of the then Minister for Agriculture was that he had seen his aim come to fruition; beef making £8 per cwt. £8 per cwt. in 1954 was a much better price than £16 per cwt. today. Which person or worker eating beef today has not got more than double the pay he had in 1954? The increase in cost across the counter has been due to the handlers who have to be paid, quite rightly. They are workers in the processing factories, butchers, shops, and so on. It is their contribution which has caused what appears to be the inflated increase in the price of beef. We should remember always that, relatively speaking, the producers are getting far less for their beef today than in the early 1950s. But by more efficient methods and so on, they are managing to do somewhat better from it.
In the European context we must look on the fertiliser and food production business. Due to the energy crisis the cost of both these products has increased out of all proportion and makes us take a second look at the profitability of the increased use of fertilisers. There is also the production of milk from imported feeds. We must become more self-sufficient in those areas and rely more on our ordinary grass production for milk. The limit to and profitability of the use of fertilisers will mean more intensive use of them for milk production. That may mean that our gross output may not be as spectacular as we had hoped. However, we are mainly concerned with net output and this should be maintained at a satisfactory level.
This year, the relatively long winter and the rapid increase in cattle numbers—11 per cent last year—without a concurrent planned and deliberate effort to increase fodder production has led to a serious scarcity of fodder on farms. In future the Department of Agriculture would need to embark on a strong campaign for the conservation of hay and silage for winter feed. The bright feature of this, on the European side, is that our competitors have the same problem. But, for us, as long as intervention buying remains along with the ability to put beef into cold storage, it means that when winter comes there will have to be some stocktaking of available food resources. The availability of these and the type of winter will regulate how much beef must be killed for cold storage rather than carrying over the heavier cattle for sale during the summer. Intervention provides a useful mechanism for matching food supplies to the available fodder or to the number of stock.
We come now to the question of the Joint Committee. I was disappointed with the report because it gave me the impression of a technical committee. Yet, as Senator Lenihan said, it had not got the necessary back-up service. I have not seen the committee broadening out in any way or splitting up into specialist groups. There are so many things happening in Europe, whether on the energy or educational level or the social fund, that it is ridiculous to expect each member of the committee to keep abreast of all these happenings. If they try to do that it will mean they will keep abreast of nothing.
I should like to see the committee setting up sub-committees and inviting other Members of the Oireachtas to serve on them. By all means let the Joint Committee on European Legislation be the main committee. But I would hope to see them recognise the need for specialist sub-committees and the need for obtaining people from outside to join them, especially Members from both Houses, who would serve on those committees.
The Government should be more actively helping Members of the Oireachtas to keep abreast of European affairs. It is all right to have one European agency to deal with literature only. I agree with Senator FitzGerald that one needs some type of automatic disposal mechanism, and probably, an automatic sorter as well, to survive this deluge. But, more than that, the real familiarisation with Europe necessitates going and studying what is happening in the various departments in Europe, in the Common Market or in the European Parliament. I would suggest to the Minister for Foreign Affairs that it is a right and proper use of Oireachtas funds to organise planned visits to Europe, to the various centres, for Members of both Houses here who wish to study certain aspects. For example, for somebody interested in education, nothing less than a visit of one week would be of any value. I would not suggest broad general coverage, a type of busman's holiday or a US tourist's idea of just looking in at every department. I am interested in an in-depth study of what is happening in specialist sections of the European Commission so that we might know what was the approach and policy within those sections and who was responsible for them. We could talk with them and learn a great deal. Those people benefiting from such visits could make a report of their specialist study to whatever Department is concerned here, be it agriculture, education or some other Department.
As a matter of policy the Government should think in terms of having every Member of the Oireachtas make at least one such visit to Europe in the year. Indeed I suggest that it should not be confined to the Oireachtas. The Government should be equally concerned with granting facilities to leaders of the people active in various areas outside—the universities, the trade organisations—to visit and study what is happening in Europe. In this way only can we play our part, contribute in the House here and to an informed public in the country.
I should like also to see this Joint Committee being the vehicle uniting our delegates to the European Parliament. I have been saddened somewhat by newspaper accounts of political fighting between our delegates in Europe. I hope this has been enlarged out of proportion by the sensational approach our newspapers tend to have in reporting these activities. Yet I am saddened by it. Once we leave this country in any delegation we are first and foremost Irishmen. Forget about the party; forget about the labels we carry; our job is the development of this little island. I should like to feel that this Joint Committee is the forum on which our ten delegates get together, talk together and work together in Europe. Initially I had thought it would be better if all were united as a group in Europe. I do not think that now. It is probably quite wise that we have representatives in all the groups. We have the Fine Gael Party represented in the Christian Democrats and it is essential to have a strong representation in that party. I hope they will keep on reminding the Christian Democrats of their glorious heritage, of de Gasperi, Adenauer and Schumann.
Likewise, it is valuable to have some representatives from the Labour Party in the Socialist group. At first it appeared to me the oddest grouping that Fianna Fáil after long consideration allied with the French group. But now I think this is a most valuable link because by and large, whether we like it or not, France wields a great power in Europe. Their power is essentially a nationalist one. Today it may be well to balance that with the more supra-nationalist outlook of the Socialist parties. Therefore Fianna Fáil are doing a very valuable service by their contacts with the French Parliamentarians.
Consequently I believe all are making a real contribution in that way. I should like to see the Government party being led by somebody with some type of Ministerial status. If it were possible, the person concerned might be a Minister without portfolio. We have got to build up the prestige of the European institutions. It is very fortunate that a man of Senator Lenihan's training, ability and experience is there to lead the Opposition party. I would hope— though of course it does not arise when there are three different parties —that there should be an overall leader for the Irish delegation there. Indeed if we take an example from our parliamentary work here, the Committee of Public Accounts is about the only committee of the Oireachtas really functioning as a committee should. Throughout the years it has been the practice that the chairman of such a committee was selected from the Opposition party. That is very wise and I think everybody acknowledges that it is a wise procedure. The same procedure has been followed—I think wisely so—in the case of the present Joint Committee on European Affairs where a member of the Opposition, Deputy Haughey, is chairman.
I should like to feel that our ten representatives would be organised together. Within that ten it would be a good idea if the Government were to appoint a Minister without portfolio, who would be leader of that group, who would have the stature, ability and experience to lead it. Alternatively, an ex-Minister—that is a Member of the Opposition—might provide the leadership. We are in an era of power-sharing, it is nonsensical to applaud power sharing in the North if we do not do it here. Power sharing applies certainly in a very big way to any approach to our commitments outside of Twenty-six Counties.
On the question of the European Parliament, I keep an open mind on the question of direct elections; ultimately "yes ", but whether they would serve any purpose immediately should be weighed up very carefully. It depends on how the European Parliament develops. If the European Parliament can develop a proper committee system acting as a counter to the super bureaucracy of the EEC Commission in Brussels then, I think direct elections might be useful. I agree with Senator Lenihan that at present all that it has is a certain moral force. Unfortunately, most Parliaments are coming down to that role. We here are in that role. I agree quite readily with Senator Lenihan that it does not matter what Government is in power. Once elected, the role of Parliament is certainly not the supreme one; it is merely that of trying to exert some moral authority on the Government. In that regard it cannot do it efficiently unless there is an adequate committee system available.
It is very gratifying—whether in the European or local context—to hear former Ministers stating quite genuinely, quite openly their belief that such a committee system is vital for the preservation of democracy and that it can have a balancing effect on the ever-increasing bureaucracy with which the modern world contends. Present Government Ministers were saying that when they were in Opposition. Therefore, does it not mean that all political parties in this county are committed to the ideal of the development of a proper and adequate committee system What are we waiting for? I urge the Government to treat this with the urgency it deserves. Let us see the development of a proper committee system in this coming year, committee system that will function whether in Europe or at home.
I am afraid the Senator is going into very general terms in regard to the committee system.
I think I will leave the committee question. It is tied up of course, with the question of elections to the European Parliament. If it is good for Europe, I am contending that the by-product is equally good for us here. I think its necessity has been recognised by all parties.
There is little else to say except to conclude on the note that, while we have many economic contributions to make in the future to the European ideal in the interests of the development of our resources, I hope our real drive will be to bring Europe back again to the idealism of the founding fathers of the EEC. I should like to see one of our delegates make this his special concern. I wish it were possible to bring back Mr. James Dillon into this Parliament and, from here, send him to Europe. I wish we had someone of his stature and convictions to carry the ideals of Schumann, de Gasperi and Adenaeur in a Europe which has gone crazy chasing the dollar as hard as any American and, unfortunately, seemed to have become much too inward looking. We need somebody to cry halt and I can think of no better man than the man I have suggested or, failing him, Senator Alexis FitzGerald might be prevailed on to carry the role, which I believe is the greatest role we can fill in the European Parliament.
Coming from a rural area and having associations for a long period with many of the rural organisations and committees of agriculture and farmers generally, I have found myself in the past few months called on to answer for our membership of the European Economic Community, having to answer for the difficult times that farmers have experienced in the past year. Farmers have seen great depression in the beef industry and store cattle industry. The pig industry is virtually in a state of collapse. There is general disappointment with what has been done through the FEOGA scheme and probably some slight disappointment with the farm modernisation scheme.
I find myself having to stand up on many occasions to justify in the eyes of the farming community our efforts to become members of the Community and to give the farmers some good reasons why we should continue to play a part in the Community. Probably this sort of situation arises—I am not talking about the economic situation but the situation in which we have to answer to such criticism—from the fact that when we first went out to sell the idea of the European Community we put too much emphasis on the economic benefits that we would derive from it and not enough on the spirit of the Community, about which Senator Alexis FitzGerald and Senator Quinlan talked. Having oversold the economic advantages of the European Community, having led the people of Ireland to believe that the European Community was an organisation which could provide us with easy money and benefits for which we would not have to pay a price ourselves, we now have an obligation to face the reality, to face the people who have a materialistic outlook and tell them straight, as Professor Quinlan said: "Not by bread alone doth man live."
It will take a certain amount of courage to do this. It would certainly have taken a lot of courage to do it when we proposed joining the EEC first. We did not do it. As parliamentarians we have an obligation not to take the emphasis away from the economic aspects, because in a country like Ireland where we have poverty and inequality we cannot entirely forget the economic aspects of membership; but we also have an obligation to tell our people that there are more than economic advantages to be obtained from the EEC.
In the past year, if the spirit of the Community had been as it should have been, this Community spirit of friendship and co-operation should have manifested itself in, for example, the crisis Holland faced in relation to energy, the crisis Britain had to face in the past few months and the less spectacular crisis of the pig industry in our own country when we had the virtual collapse of an industry that had been earning approximately £40 million a year and the great upheaval in the lives of many people who had come to depend on it. The spirit of the Community should be expressed in its efforts to solve these problems for individual nations. The spirit is not necessarily or essentially a spirit of providing other less well-off countries with money.
I regard the idea of direct elections to the European Parliament as very important. At the moment, that Parliament is far from being a democratic Parliament. The system of appointment to the European Parliament in this country is not a democratic system, although it could be argued to be such. As long as we have this system of election to the European Parliament we will have the situation where leaders of Europe, men with vision and concern for all the European Community, will come in only by chance and will not necessarily reflect the feelings towards that Community of the ordinary people all over Europe.
Senator Alexis FitzGerald has compared the system of election to the European Parliament with the system of election to the Seanad. He said that such a system of election creates a difference in the powers of the two Houses. I do not think this is so. The powers of the European Parliament are related not to the system of election but to the powers that are vested in it at its inception. The same thing applies here in the Seanad because if powers were vested in the Seanad we would have different powers. The system of election can have an important effect on the quality and attitudes of the members over a long period of years.
This is why I am anxious to see men who will take the question of the European Parliament back into the heart and home of every person in this and other countries. We will have a common bond on the day that election is held through Europe. It will take the remoteness out of the idea of the European Parliament, where at present members of that Parliament owe their positions to a small number of people. The attitudes and abilities they have are not necessarily acceptable to people in general but are thought to be good by the leadership of particular political parties. If the leaders of any political party were given the option to pick all the Members of the Dáil and Seanad the make-up would be very different from what it is. Because the Members have been elected by the people, both Houses contain a better cross-section of every view and every opinion throughout our community and it is only in this way that we can have true parliamentary democracy at work. It is only in this way that genuine European leaders will develop because under the present system it is entirely a matter of chance.
Senator Lenihan referred to the new farm modernisation scheme which has been introduced under a European directive. I could not accept his criticism of this scheme that it facilitates only something like 20 per cent of the farmers of this country. In fact, more than 80 per cent of the farmers will be involved in this scheme. Even if this scheme has been introduced under a European directive, even if it is thought to be very new thinking, in the General Council of Committees of Agriculture, of which I was chairman for a number of years, we prepared a plan for the modernisation of the advisory services and we also included the whole question of aids and incentives to farmers in the development of their enterprise.
We set out principles that are contained in the new farm modernisation scheme: principles which mean that if a farmer is to obtain incentives from a Government that farmer must be prepared to plan in order to make progress and to ensure that his business will not forever have to be subsidised and nursed. Eventually it should become a business that can stand on its own feet and sell food at the right price so that our economy will not be upset by having to pay too much for any particular article.
It is a step away from the cheap food agricultural policy which we have had to pursue during the past number of years. People do not understand that because of the cheap food policy of the British Government we in this country were forced into a situation where subsidisation was the only answer if we were to market our agricultural produce. In the future, although subsidisation for a period may be necessary, we must aim to create a situation in which our agricultural industry will not need to be subsidised. It is only by planning and proper management technique that this situation can be achieved. Far too many people in public life are being influenced by the attitude of the farmer who is completely convinced that there is no obligation on him to plan or look ahead. In the future we must take our cue from the farmers who are prepared to think and plan. There is no point in farmers looking to the Government for continuous subsidisation to maintain a situation that is not a healthy one and cannot be maintained.
During the past six months farmers in the pig industry particularly have taken a severe rap. The Agricultural Credit Corporation have given them every assistance. Our banks should be involved in all this with the Agricultural Credit Corporation, the Government and the farmers. All have to take the rough with the smooth. The banks position would never be at risk, no matter what happens in the agricultural industry. We have had tough times during the past year but the position is not hopeless. Even in the pig situation things are looking brighter. During a difficult period if the farmer is underfinanced and a panic situation is created, I feel banks have done irreparable damage to farmers who were at a very awkward stage when this crisis occurred.
Senator Quinlan mentioned the cost of fertilisers, grain and foodstuffs. It occurred to me that a great national asset is being wasted annually by the farmers of this county in the form of organic fertilisers and effluent from cattle. An incalculable amount of nutrients, manures and fertilisers are finding their way into our rivers and streams and waterways. People who do not understand the situation blame the farmers for this. Definitely the farmers have a responsibility, and money, education and research should be put at the disposal of the farming community. This is only one place where a great national saving could be brought about.
If we look at the total amount of nutrients that is put on a farm of 30 acres any year, so many tons of fertilisers, the number of tons of produce that is sold off in the form of butter and beef is very small. The great bulk of the nutrients, by way of fertilisers, that is put into that soil are washed off in the form of organic fertilisers into our rivers and streams, when it could go straight back on to the land and save us a great bill annually in importation of fertilisers and create much additional wealth for our farmers.
I should like to end on the note that Senator Quinlan ended on, by saying that I believe the economic aspect of the agricultural community has been overplayed. No one has done this more so than our Minister for Foreign Affairs. We were so busy selling the idea of economic gain to the people of Ireland that we forgot to tell them that there is much more to European unity than this. There is so much more peace and security in knowing that we are a united continent, that cultural activities we could share should be emphasised more. If we can get the people of Ireland to think along different lines they would welcome this change of attitude.
Ba mhaith liom cúpla focail a rá ar an rún seo. I just want to say that I, like many others, was very interested and campaigned to ensure that this country would eventually join the EEC. As we know, that happened more than a year ago. Most people in this country were anxious that we would get away from the island state in which we had found ourselves for many years, particularly our farming community, who were forced, and had no other option, to provide cheap agricultural produce for our neighbouring country, England. When a depression took place there, we were always badly affected. If we produced more goods, the prices fell. We were tied to a quota system. If we produced more pigs we were unable to sell them. Our cattle prices dropped occasionally. Very often farmers were faced with economic ruin. We were all anxious to get away from a situation like that, to broaden the market and give the producers of Ireland a chance to sell their cattle, sheep, pigs and various other agricultural produce in markets abroad.
We were very glad that the people of Ireland decided on a free vote to join the EEC. We knew it would have great advantages for this country. Despite what has happened in the meantime, we feel we were on the right track. There is no doubt in anybody's mind that things are not so good in this country at present. The main reason is that perhaps the EEC was not sold to us in the proper manner. Many people were unaware that it would take at least five years before we would be in completely and that it would take that length of time to surmount various tariffs.
Last year many people attending fairs and marts were paying in the month of January the price for cattle that was then obtainable in the Common Market markets. In that way many people were misled by restocking with very dear cattle and then because of the fall in price they have now found themselves in a difficult position. I wholeheartedly agree with Senator McCartin that in many of these instances, in view of our entry into the Common Market, people had gone to their bank manager or other lending institutions and secured money on the strength of that. I am not too sure what the banks' attitude is but I would say that they should lean over backwards to help people in a situation such as that and give them ample time to rectify a situation, a situation which will rectify itself later on anyway. It would be disastrous and very bad policy to try and put these people completely out of business because of a temporary setback such as that.
I feel the banks have been niggardly in their treatment of the farming community. While in foreign countries people could get loans of 50 per cent or more of the value of their farms, that tradition does not obtain in this country. I know of small farmers and not alone did they have to lodge the deeds of their farms but they nearly had to bring in all the other farmers living in the townland along with them to sign so that those progressive farmers would be able to get some type of a loan to help them to increase their incomes and progress in the way that modern farmers should. I sincerely hope that there is a different outlook in that respect and that that outlook will be maintained in the future.
I agree it was right for us to enter the European Economic Community. I feel that we have much to learn from it. It will be much better for the people of our country not alone from the economic point of view but in other fields as well. It was high time that we got an extra window through which we could look at the world at large. For too long our people have been going to England and America. The English language is spoken by most of the people there and we were getting swamped between both.
Culturally it will be better for this country. In the past we had many ties with Europe. It is good now to see that we are in there again and I think we should play a much greater part in it. We should begin with our youth. The French language should be recognised as being important in our schools. An effort should be made to start when the children are very young. A third language could be taught in our national schools. French and German being the main European languages, it would help to cement the connection with the European Community if one of those languages were taught. It would also mean that in future our children going abroad would be able to use these languages.
I submit that EEC membership has added a greater dimension to and placed a greater emphasis on the Irish language. People who have been in Europe have been glad of the fact that they were able to converse in the Irish language because it took them up off their knees and left them in the position that they were on a par with many of the European people vis-à-vis the English people who only had one language. The Irish delegates were at least bilingual. Some of them had even more languages. It is a great asset.
Classes in European languages should be provided for our delegates going out to the European Parliament so that they would be able to mix in the social gatherings there even though they might not need to use those languages in the debates. There should be some exchange scheme in our secondary and vocational schools for a few months of the year between pupils from one particular county and some province in France. These arrangements have taken place in certain colleges. The St. Louis Convent in Monaghan have been on to this for quite a while. Many of their pupils have been taken on trips to France. I have spoken to some of them and they were highly impressed. It was of great educational importance and great value to those people who are the future citizens of this country. It broadened their outlook. It showed them that these various languages were spoken widely. For too long the idea has been put across that it was too difficult to learn a second, third or fourth language. Take, for example, people living in Switzerland who speak four or five languages. The easiest way to learn any language is to speak it from the cradle up. In that way you dispense with all rules of grammar that become difficult for children at a later stage. For that reason I would suggest that there should be an exchange between our country and those countries within the EEC so as to create a feeling of good neighbourliness. These things are just as important as the economic benefits which would flow from it.
Some mention has been made of elections to the European Parliament. I suppose it is something that has been engaging the minds of many people for quite a while. Since the Council of Europe was formed, many delegates have got experience of going out there and they have acquited themselves creditably. Many of our people who go out there have stood up in that forum and made interesting and able contributions. Perhaps the media may not have taken much note of it because it was happening in Europe but from my experience I can say that the contributions they made and the way they conducted themselves outside was a credit to the parliament that sent them and to the nation as a whole.
During the years people have been toying with the idea of direct elections to the European Parliament. Deputies who are out there suffer a disadvantage so far as their own constituencies are concerned because they are often away from where they live for 100 days. The time will have to come eventually when the European Parliament will need to have more teeth and that members will be elected directly from each country. That will probably be done, taking the whole country as the constituency. It would give people a better chance of doing their work out there which as the years go by will become very important. It would ensure, too, that they would not have any worries regarding their various constituencies at home. In other words, they would be free. Those who know a little about membership of the European Parliament know that it is a full-time job to try to read documents and to keep versed with what is happening. I would certainly be in favour of some scheme such as that being worked out.
Somebody made a reference to the prices, the increase that has taken place and the frustration that has followed our first year of entry into the Common Market. I sincerely hope that that was only temporary. I have one reservation and that is regarding this new farm modernisation scheme. It is something which few people seem to know a great deal about. It will affect the lives of our people in rural Ireland in the future. This should be dealt with immediately. If there is any difficulty regarding the agricultural staff and the Minister involved it should be resolved. The farming community should be made aware of what the position is. Many small farmers, it is said, think that this is another effort to bring the Mansholt Plan into existence and to wipe out the small farmer in another way. That is completely wrong. There may be some farmers who may not be able to advance but there are ways of grouping them and getting them into various small co-operative societies.
It would be disastrous if in many areas of our country the small farmer was to be wiped out and if the Forestry Division moved in behind him to plant his land. That is something we do not want to happen in rural Ireland. We have in the past to a certain extent supported the afforestation of our country on marginal land and very poor land, but we know now that we have a favourable climate for growing cheap grass and for producing agricultural crops in a competitive way. We do not want the Forestry Division coming along and taking from us for tree planting this marginal land which would be of great use to adjoining farmers. Our experience has been that there is little labour content in it. A big acreage of forestry can be cut down in a few weeks by some people who come into the area and the local people do not get any employment at all. While the land is there every effort should be made to ensure that it will be used to produce agricultural products. Most mountain farms are suitable for rearing sheep. A scheme could be envisaged whereby shelter-belts might be planted. I have seen in South Kerry the use of a special plough from Italy. The workers have gone underneath the subsoil, ploughed it up and re-seeded it, and have made good green land out of it.
The amount of land in this country is limited. As the population increases and more houses are built it will become less and less. Our climate is very favourable. Our weather conditions are reasonably good. We are much better than some of the countries in the EEC. That is our trump card so far as agriculture is concerned. It affects also industries based on agricultural products. It is on these that the future economic prosperity of our country will rest. We should ensure that those points will be kept in mind in order that the people of our country, with their own resources, will be able to move ahead.
Many people may have expected some great windfalls from the Common Market. Perhaps that was part of the reason they were frustrated. The difficulty in connection with the regional fund is not the fault of the Minister. It is something that has been agitating the minds of the people here for a long time. We should certainly like to see it resolved. We should like to see our Senators in Europe ensuring that our case for a substantial grant would be pursued.
We are asked today to note the documents, Developments in the European Communities—Second Report, but I think the Minister wisely asked us in his opening address to give thought to the crisis that confronts the Community at the moment. The report, as presented to us, is merely an extension of the first and original report which came before us last summer. It contains all the nitty-gritty which one would expect such a report to contain, and as such it is welcome of course. The change that has come over the situation since that first report came before us and since our advent to the Community is what really perturbs the Minister, and rightly so at the moment. There is no doubt that only nine months ago there was a cautious note of confidence and optimism that we would gain something of economic and material benefit to us because of our entry into the EEC.
That note of cautious optimism has now been replaced by a slight feeling of pessimism regarding even the future survival of the EEC as the entity which was first envisaged. This has come about purely through the acts of some of the more powerful members of that Community, perhaps as a result of the energy situation leaving certain countries a little bit more selfish, more greedy as regards achieving their own selfish aims at the expense of their less strong compatriots. Perhaps it is just one of those phases through which the world is going at the moment. The EEC, having gone through a certain stage of development, finds now that certain members are beginning to question whether they would not be better off on their own, and to ask whether the EEC should take an alternative form.
Ireland must decide and make her voice felt along with that of other small members of the EEC—small countries like Holland, Denmark, Luxembourg and Belgium. There is no doubt that large member countries can afford to play around with the concept of the EEC. They can afford to think of alternatives to that concept. They can afford to be less concerned with— as the Minister, I think, mentions in his report—the concept of unity of purpose and action. Small countries cannot so afford. It is with them, I think, that Ireland should align herself and bring to the forefront something that has been within the EEC since its very beginning but has not been voiced sufficiently, namely, political cooperation and eventual political union.
There is no doubt that since its commencement in 1958 the EEC has always emphasised the economic aspects of membership. Behind the EEC was the hope of political union within Europe. That hope and desire for unity come from the experience of European countries over the past 30 years. It has been a bit unfortunate that the economic aspects have been oversold to a certain extent. I would not for one moment blame the people who are promoting our membership of the EEC or place on them the responsibility for overselling economic aspects to the prejudice of the other aspects of European union.
Those bodies who have seen the disadvantages since our entry are a bit like the bride after a wedding— and perhaps even the bridegroom— who have just begun to wonder whether all the rose-coloured images before the event were justified. Those bodies are strong enough to adjust themselves, as the marriage partners adjust themselves and face the realities of the situation, with its advantages and disadvantages.
It is difficult to believe that the large member countries have the voice of the citizens behind them in the attitudes they are adopting. Germany may be returning to the nationalism which has always been part of its identity. Britain is taking advantage of a change of Government to endeavour to strike a better deal for itself. Are the Governments of these countries conscious of the true voice of the citizens and what their feelings are towards the true meaning of European Community involvement? Direct elections would help and leave large member countries and their Governments less able to convince themselves that they were acting as the people would wish them to act.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs has a difficult task. We are now faced with a situation which was not envisaged by anyone 12 months ago, namely, the survival of the EEC. That has come about because of the change in the nature of thinking of some of the large member countries. Our function is to align ourselves with the small member states and to put the message to the Community as a whole that political union is an essential as economic union. We did not experience the holocaust experienced by the small countries in Europe in the late 1930s and 1940s. They know why a Council of Europe was set up. They agreed with the thinking behind the commencement of the EEC in 1958. Economic union is one thing but mutual welfare, political safety and the maintenance of the integrity of individual states was much in the minds of the citizens of the small European states who went through the holocausts of the 1930s and 1940s. Those people who did a good job making the case for our entry into the EEC were, and are now, more aware of the other aspect of EEC membership—that as a Community we seek political union, monetary union and economic union. One without the other is not fulfilling the original thinking behind the concept in the first place.
I conclude by wishing the Minister for Foreign Affairs every good fortune in the difficult task which lies before him. I hope the small member nations will see the choice that lies before them: mutual safety or being at the feet, so to speak, of the large member nations.
The supplementary report which we have received brings the position in the European Community up to February, 1974, which means we have between the second report and the supplementary report what amounts to a survey of the first year of membership. It would be idle to pretend we are not to some extent disappointed by the progress and our experiences in the Community during the first year. However it would be wrong to suggest that no benefits have been gained or that no progress has been made. Because everything has not turned out as we had hoped it does not mean that no progress was made.
I agree with several of the speakers who regretted the emphasis on economic and materialistic matters, and who regretted that more attention was not being paid to the political scene and to the other aspects of membership of the Community. When discussing membership I have always taken the view that we should be motivated not merely by the economic advantages of membership but that, in addition, there should be an ideological commitment. When discussing this during the debate before membership I always advised those to whom I was speaking that unless they had some ideological commitment, some feeling that they belonged to Europe, were part of Europe and had a part to play in Europe, the economic advantages might not be sufficient to make membership of the Community worthwhile.
The vote by the people during the referendum showed fairly conclusively that they had more than an economic interest in Europe. It showed that they felt they were members of Europe and wished to play a part in it. It is difficult to estimate, but it would appear that the people of Ireland have become integrated in Europe to a considerable extent even during the first year. They regard themselves as being involved more and more in European affairs. Many people now live in Brussels and many people travel back and forward to various parts of Europe. This increases their concern as to what is happening in the Community.
The people of Ireland are not only concerned about the happenings in these other countries but are sometimes concerned about the lack of concern shown by the other members of the Community about what is happening in this country and the effect of various policies on this country. Membership of the Community has been a good thing for us. It has removed to a considerable extent our parochial approach and has made us far more involved in European affairs and for that reason less dominated by affairs in the United Kingdom and possibly in the United States. This redress of the balance which was very strong—the domination by the UK and the USA —and this move towards Europe have been beneficial to our country. The general public are pleased, after one year of membership, at the change which has taken place and are pleased, in spite of the threats made to them and the gloomy picture painted by some people, that we have not only survived in the EEC but in most respects we are showing every indication of thriving in the Community. We have not been submerged by competition from these countries nor have we been outwitted or dominated by them in the institutions, committees and organisations which we have joined since becoming members of the Community.
We are benefiting from the economic point of view after one year. Our agricultural exports are up considerably. This is not surprising, because it was the one aspect of membership that everybody agreed would take place. It was agreed that we would have a guaranteed market, better prices, and more exports. This has taken place, but I think it has taken place even in some respects to a more satisfactory extent than might have been anticipated. In this respect I have in mind in particular the activities of An Bord Bainne in regard to our dairy exports. In that field not only did we get rid of our dairy products but we sold them in a competitive market and in a satisfactory way as a result of the marketing activities and expertise of An Bord Bainne. This meant that we sold our products at a high price and did not have to rely on the prices which we would be guaranteed by the Community if we did not dispose of our products in any other way. We did not have to rely on this protection, this floor, which we could have received from the Community. In fact, we sold our agricultural products at a very satisfactory price.
In the same way our industrial exports have shown a very satisfactory rise. We have shown that we are able to export to the countries of Europe and the other members of the Community satisfactorily, that we have been able to compete against the goods on sale in these countries and that our industrialists not only increased their sales but have gained in confidence and in expertise. There is every reason to hope that our industrial exports will increase significantly as the years go on.
Apart from these increased exports we have received a number of other benefits from the Community, considerable benefits from the social fund, very valuable loans from the European Investment Bank, and of course our Exchequer has benefited considerably from the fact that agricultural subsidies have no longer to be provided by the Exchequer. The Government were able to give much increased benefits to social welfare beneficiaries during the past year.
From many points of view we can look back on the year, in spite of some disappointments, as an indication that membership of the Community has been beneficial to this country and has, generally speaking, lived up to the hope of those who advocated membership and has indicated that in the future membership will continue to benefit this country.
The one real disappointment was the position in regard to the regional fund. It is now clear that this is not going to live up to the exceptations which we had for it. Our expectations were perhaps pitched too high. Nevertheless I think the expectations we had were not unreasonable. The figures we are talking about now and the kind of figures we may get from the fund are so small in comparison with our total capital budget that they will certainly play no significant part in solving the problems of the lessdeveloped parts of our country. I will not say the sums are negligible because any money will be of some value. The regional fund will make some contribution and possibly in the years ahead it will improve, but it must be regarded now as being a very considerable disappointment. I do not want to anticipate what may happen at the meeting which is to take place in a few weeks time or at future meetings. One is hopeful that it will turn out better than it appears likely at the moment, but in any event the whole operation seems to be pitched at a considerably lower key than was originally hoped.
In this respect there is some hope for the future because of the connection between the regional policy and economic and monetary union. Most economists who have written and spoken about the future of the Community and about the move towards economic and monetary union have agreed that regional policy is very much bound up with economic and monetary union and that a true and successful economic and monetary union cannot be achieved without a successful regional policy. Consequently even some of those countries which are not enthusiastic about a regional policy or about giving money to those countries which need aid are very keen on economic and monetary union. It is clear that they cannot have one without the other. For that reason I think there is some hope for the future, even though the move in that direction may be slower and more difficult than had been thought.
I do not think the man-in-the-street fully realises the importance of the connection between the two policies and to a certain extent our representatives in the Community, who are speaking about this problem, do not emphasise this connection or show how important it can be in the future in achieving what we require in regard to a regional policy.
When I say that we are disappointed in the regional policy I mean not merely disappointed in the sense that we are obtaining less economic aid, and less in the way of funds, but also disappointed in so far as it indicates a lack of commitment by some of the other members of the Community to the spirit of the Treaty of Rome, the spirit which originally activated those who founded the European Community. If the European Community has any meaning or any idealistic justification, it is a fact that the stronger countries within the Community should help the weaker countries and the stronger sections of the Community should help the weaker sections. Consequently the regional policy is, as has been described by the Commission recently in its report on the matter, an important test of the Community's spirit. It is written into the Treaty of Rome. It is one of the Preambles to the Treaty of Rome that the areas which are at an economic disadvantage should be helped and brought up to the level of other areas in the Community. It is not merely disappointing from the point of view of funds, or of economic benefits but it is a disappointment also because the Community has been showing itself to be less than wholehearted in living up to its Preamble to the Treaty of Rome and in living up to its idealistic aspirations.
Perhaps some allowance can be made with regard to this position because this has been so long drawn out by the fact that there were, naturally, some enlargement pains during the first year of the enlarged Community and that towards the end of the year we had the energy crisis. Whereas this does not fully justify or explain the reluctance of the other countries to produce and agree to a satisfactory regional policy, it certainly played some part in slowing up the development of the policy and, possibly, in making them reluctant to give as much as we would think necessary for a successful regional policy.
In spite of this disappointment and a few other disappointments it is clear that membership has been limited and the simplest way to test this is to ask would we leave the Community at the moment, would the farmers forego the benefits they have from guaranteed prices and guaranteed markets? Would industry which is enlarging in the Community abandon the outlets it has discovered? Would we lightly abandon the advantages we have from being in touch with the social fund or the various other matters which I referred to earlier? In spite of some disappointment, there have been benefits from membership and certainly at this stage nobody would seriously suggest that we should consider leaving the Community or asking to have our terms renegotiated or anything of that kind. The majority of the people, possibly not 84 per cent at this stage, but certainly, a large majority of the people would still think that we did the right thing in becoming members of the Community.
Perhaps because of certain setbacks that we have had during this year, perhaps because of inertia in big bodies and because of red tape, our contributions to the Community have not been fully effective. When I say this I mean that we have not been able to play our part as effectively as possible in the institutions, the various committees that we are members of, the various organisations that we are members of and that we are not sometimes able because we are a small country, to have members on the various committees on which it would be advisable to have them.
Even in the cases where we have members we have not been able to play a full part because these members have not the resources, the funds or the back-up services that are necessary to enable them to play a full part. In this connection I think we can start by considering our own Joint Committee here for the two Houses which has been very frustrating. The reluctance on the part of the Government, the Department of Finance and the Department of the Public Service to give this committee the staff and assistance which they required has certainly been frustrating and disappointing and difficult to understand. This Joint Committee were set up by unanimous agreement of both Houses of the Oireachtas. They were given an important job to do and have found it impossible to do the job which they were asked to do because of the failure to obtain the staff and resources which are necessary to do the job.
The position is becoming worse daily. The backlog of work to be done is constantly mounting. Unless something is done soon I think the Joint Committee would have to come to the conclusion that it was impossible to carry on their work and would have to report back to the two Houses accordingly. I understand that some progress has been made on this problem recently and I am hopeful that the necessary staff and so on will be provided. They are a dedicated and enthusiastic committee, anxious to do the job they were asked to do and I hope they will be given the opportunity to do so in the near future.
In making these remarks about the Joint Committee I want to make it quite clear that I am in no sense criticising the Minister, who played an important part in getting this Joint Committee set up and who has always, so far as his Department are concerned, given them every encouragement and every help. I certainly do not wish to be taken as criticising him in any way for the difficulties which have arisen.
In regard to this general question of not only that committee but the various committees in Brussels, the institutions, the various committees where we have to play a part and where we are sending members to do a job, I think it is essential that this reluctance to give them the means of doing the job must be overcome. This penny-pinching attitude must be eliminated and they must be given every help possible. We are a very small country. We do not have the influence and power of some of the bigger countries in some of the institutions. As I say, we sometimes find it difficult to find members for committees but it is absolutely essential for us—much more than for the bigger countries—that the people we do send to these various committees and organisations are given all the help they need to enable them to be members of these committees and to make contributions to the full potential that is possible.
Consequently, this is something that is of paramount importance. It could be said that we spent 1973, the first year of membership of the Community, feeling our way, gaining experience, realising what is necessary, realising the kind of contribution that we must make if the interests of Ireland are to be adequately represented. We have gained experience. We know now what is necessary and our various representatives must be given the resources to do what is necessary, to do it effectively and do it to the greatest possible potential. There is a problem, too, in so far as our members of the European Parliament are concerned. It is quite clear that they are finding it tough going. This is not merely because of lack of resources and back-up which of course they have also complained about and in respect of which they have been helped to some extent but they are finding it increasingly difficult to play their part as members of the European Parliament and at the same time play their part as Members of the Dáil or Seanad while trying, also, to look after their constituency and other affairs.
This is a problem which has been clearly realised during the first year of our membership of the Community. I do not see any prospect of this problem easing itself out even if these members are provided with more help, as I hope they will be. It leads one to realise that there will have to be some change in the method of election to the European Parliament. This is especially so in the case of this country. It is relatively simple for a parliamentarian in Belgium or one of these places near Luxembourg or Strasbourg to be a parliamentarian in the European Parliament and also in his own parliament. In addition to this some of them have special arrangements to facilitate them in playing the dual role. Certainly as far as the arrangement in this country is concerned, and having regard to the distance that parliamentarians here are from the venues of the European Parliament this is a major problem which we will have to tackle in one way or another in the near future. The ideal would be to have some separate election for parliamentarians in the European Parliament and almost full-time members doing that job. That is the only satisfactory way that one can visualise for members of the European Parliament and the only satisfactory way in the long run for the European Parliament itself.
We should endeavour to have a democratic European Parliament elected in a democratic way by all the countries. There are various theories and views as to how this should be done, and there was a very interesting article by Maurice Schumann on this recently. However it is done, we should attempt to move in this direction, that is, to have the members of the European Parliament elected in a democratic way. If this is done we will also have to give them more power. It is like the old question: which comes first, the chicken or the egg. Do we give them power even when they are not democratically elected or which do you start with? Unless you have both it is not a satisfactory situation. We should move as fast as possible towards having the European Parliament more democratically elected and give it also more power.
The only other point I should like to comment on is the question of the attitude of the new British Government in regard to renegotiation. Their views on this seem to vary almost from day to day. They seem to have modified considerably their earlier views on this question. Renegotiation may be merely another way of saying that they want to influence the policy of the Community. It seems to me that renegotiation in any real sense is almost impossible and from a practical point of view I do not think the other members of the Community would tolerate it in any significant way. Whereas modification of the policy of the European Community is of course always possible, and I hope that it is in that direction that the new UK Government will move. By doing that it should be possible to avoid any crisis in the Community. I hope this is so for many reasons. Quite obviously if a crisis did develop and if the UK Government should find it necessary to leave the Community or find that they were making no progress, this would pose problems for us which would be so difficult and so complicated that I shudder to think of how we would cope with them. I am hopeful that that situation will not arise. If it does not arise and the UK Government integrates itself without any serious problems in the Community in the coming year, then I think that the year should be as good as the one that has passed and possibly a good deal better from the point of view of this country.
It is appropriate at this time after one year in the EEC that we should have an opportunity to look back on it. Even if we had not been in the EEC for this particular year we would still have had many changes. Many of the changes that have made the biggest impact on this country during the last 12 months would have come about in any event had we not been in the EEC. The energy crisis and the high cost of agricultural inputs—manure, feedstuffs—would have obtained in any event. Many people tend to blame our entry into the EEC for the conditions that obtain now. Many politicians tend to say that, while there is not anything we can do about this, we are in the EEC now and our policies are made in Brussels.
I am well aware of the fact that we have our negotiators and our Ministers there who are doing a really good job for this country, but it is important that the work they are doing there and the benefits that are accruing to this country because of their activities there should be made known to the people at local level.
I should like to agree with what some of the speakers have already said regarding our having overemphasised the monetary side of our entry into the EEC. We should not have concerned ourselves so much with the financial gains that would accrue to this country because of our entry. If we had tried to sell the idea of joining the EEC to the people of Ireland just because it was a big Community and that we would be part of Europe we would have failed. We sold the idea of joining the EEC the only way it could be done and that was to point out that it would result in lively financial gains for this country. It is important that people be reasonably well off financially before they can avail themselves of the benefits that will accrue to this country because of our being in Europe. It is true that the bulk of our people have not had the opportunity of going to Europe and many of them will never have that opportunity. But they are interested in our policies there and how they will be affected by them. As I said already, even if we were not in Europe very many of the difficulties we have experienced would still be with us. It is true that the price of household goods would be just as high even if we had not joined the Community. This should be made clear.
Like Senator McCartin, I find myself in the position at agricultural gatherings of trying to defend our entry into the EEC, not because our entry to the EEC has brought about certain conditions but because the people are under the impression that this is what has happened. The benefits that are coming to Irish agriculture directly from farm modernisation are not so great. In fact, they are only about 7 per cent of the cost of modernising viable farms. This is a very small amount when you consider the standards that are set are very high. I should like to be able to say that many of our farmers are in a position already to achieve the standards that have been set but I am afraid it is not so. The figure that is given is £1,800 per labour unit on a farm. That is in addition to the appropriate interest that would normally be going to the farmer or the owner. In many cases this does not happen. It would be pretty easy for medium and somewhat bigger farmers to start on this modernisation programme. I find it difficult to think that after four years many of them would be able to attain the figures that are set out. We must remember that those are figures that would be adjusted accordingly. As things have been happening in the past they are likely to go up. One is a bit sceptical about predictions, especially in view of what has happened during the last 12 months.
We campaigned for entry on the basis of the advantages that would accrue to agriculture. There has been some advantage to this sector, particularly to those involved in dairying. The anti-EEC lobby told us that industry would suffer as a result of membership but, as we know, industry is doing well in EEC conditions. We are glad that this is so. In particular those industries based on agriculture have been doing well. We have scope for more expansion in that line. We are exporting too much of our agricultural products in the raw state. There is plenty of scope for processing these products so as to give employment at home and to add value to the goods we export. With the exception of the mining industry, agriculture and agricultural raw materials were the only resources that we had in this country.
In the past we had to rely on those exports and we were faced with depressed agricultural prices. England's policy was one of cheap food for her own industrial nation. They still follow that policy but it would not be to our advantage to help them in that aspiration. I realise that this is one of the problems that England is facing at the moment with regard to renegotiation. It is not necessary to point out that if England gets any considerable concessions regarding cheap food it could well have an adverse effect upon this country, not alone on farmers but on all citizens. The Irish nation depends largely on exports. Our largest exports are agricultural products and to a lesser degree agricultural raw materials.
It is necessary to point out the changes that have come about during the past 12 months. I think it was Senator Quinlan who pointed out that the price of fertilisers, one of the most important inputs into agriculture, had increased. He said that we should use less of those fertilisers. Except in very few cases this would not apply. By and large there is need for much greater use of manures even at the increased prices we have to pay for them.
We ought to let it be known to our farming community in general that to depend upon imported foodstuffs for our cattle, pigs and poultry during the winter months is not on. We can conserve much food during the summer for use in the winter months. This is what we will have to do if we are to continue to increase our livestock numbers and take advantage of the markets that are available to us in Europe.
The markets are certainly there. The prices are good but we are probably lacking in the ability to put our produce on the market, particularly livestock, in the European situation. I have had some opportunity during the past 12 months of seeing what obtains there. It is nice to go across to France and see the prices that obtain there for livestock —£25 a cwt.
You find there are a lot of snags and problems to be ironed out. It is only to be expected that whoever goes into this field initially will meet those problems and snags. They cost money. I was involved with one co-op this year in exporting cattle to France. The idea seemed attractive at the outset but by the time all the problems had been dealt with and all the expenses paid no profit was made. The reason I mentioned this is because now that we are not called on to directly subsidise agricultural goods we ought to help in some way the organising of those markets and the export of produce so that they will be put on the European market in good condition. We should ensure that whatever goods we export to the European market are top-class. There is no room for inferior goods if we are to hold our own and improve our position. We have to ensure that the smart alecks and the get-rich-quick boys will not be allowed to abuse the markets that are there at the moment.
I note that we got a loan of £4 million for CIE at a very attractive rate. While I do not want to emphasise the financial part of it, I think this is good business. It is a pity that we were unable to receive more. I am sure that our negotiators are well aware of our great need for finance. We have a country which by and large is underdeveloped. We must endeavour to export as much as possible.
I shall not deal at any great length with any of the other problems, except to point out the necessity of putting across to our people how our entry into Europe has changed our pattern of life, but it certainly is not responsible for inflation. Prices have gone up in every country in Europe. There are people who say that we should not be in the Community and that we should get out. By and large, our first year in the European situation has worked to our advantage and it is likely that that will continue to be so. We have to be watchful in the future. We want to ensure that if England gets the opportunity to change the terms of her entry, this will not be to our disadvantage.
Our policy should be to have a close association with the smaller states and by so doing would have a lot to contribute to Europe apart altogether from the monetary aspect. The EEC is a great thing for this country. Even in one year people are beginning to look further afield. In the past we were tied to England. No matter what they did we had to do the same thing. It has been suggested now that England may re-negotiate her agreement or may pull out altogether. If that should happen, and it is most unlikely, we would want to give serious consideration as to whether we should follow her line or not. I do not think we should. I know there are a lot of problems to be gone into. This is a big question. We may not have to face it, but if we do there is no easy decision on it.
Finally, I should like to congratulate our Minister for Foreign Affairs. He has done a great job over the last 12 months. I am sure it will not get smaller in the future. Let me say that I should like our representatives in Europe to speak with one voice in so far as they can. There are problems and there will be problems. Very often our representatives do not get a chance in the sense that it is not easy running across to Europe and having to appear there often at short notice. The job they are doing is a very important one. It needs a bigger back-up service than they have. It has already been pointed out today that it might be a good idea if the leader of the group were in the position of, say, a Minister without portfolio. It is necessary that the standing of our representatives in Europe should be at a high level. We ought as a nation to confer that standing on them. They should be given a proper back-up service as it is in the interests of the country that they work as a united team.
I propose not to pay anything but the most passing attention to the economic implications of the report and indeed of what has emerged in the debate so far except to record my disappointment, too, at the extent of the regional fund and to stress that that regional fund is going to remain hovering in the political air over Ireland for a long time. Even if it is disappointing in what it grants to us within the EEC just now, the battle to have it increased will have to go on. The Minister for Foreign Affairs based his reputation as a politician, as a prophet, and as an economist, very largely on the promises emerging from that regional fund, which was to bring enormous benefit to the country. It was certainly a central plank in the whole debate on the referendum and in the whole matter of entry. The ball is still in his court. Nobody admires him more than I do for the extraordinary, strenuous and effective work that he has done in fighting for this fund. There is probably not a Foreign Minister in the entire Community of nations who has worked harder, more strenuously or in a more enlightened way. Still it is also true to say emphatically that all that work has not delivered the goods which were promised in the debate on the whole initial decision to enter the Community.
Having said that, I want to pass on to something that is more disturbing and more radically in need of scrutiny. That is the situation which allows that secondary legislation within the Community moves up through a structure which, as far as I can see, we cannot influence at all except at that point of the European Parliament. The Commission initiates its legislation; it passes up through working parties—which are apparently confidential—and then in 99 cases out of 100, it gets through the European Parliament, goes up to the Council of Ministers and there it is adopted. According to the Minister's statement here and within the terms of our present structure we are as parliamentarians to be granted the privilege of every six months being told what that top of the pyramid has decided, the Council of Ministers. We have no means whatever of influencing that legislation—I hope someone will correct me if I am wrong—on its way from the Commission to the top. We have no way as parliamentarians; naturally our Foreign Minister and his staff know a great deal about it. But legislation by a Foreign Minister and his staff is not exactly the life blood of the parliamentary process. We have then our own five stages of putting our legislation through. The twain do not seem to meet.
Therefore we have the responsibility met by a committee whose situation we are discussing today. On setting up this committee what did we do? It seems to me that we went very hastily about it, that we really threw it together, formed it of distinguished personnel, but by and large we did not scrutinise what the role of this committee really should be, what the powers of the committee should be, what its raison d'être might be. The only raison d'être of a committee like that would be to forge whatever links were possible between the process of legislation in Europe and the process of legislation here. I presume that is really what it is there for. It is probably not getting any resources. It has no research resources worth talking about. In fact the only research that can be done will have to be done by the self-sacrifice of time of the members themselves. They have produced one report on regional government, but there are a whole series of areas which they could not possibly be expected to investigate— areas involving education, the environment, transport legislation, the whole field of culture, hundreds of others. I bet there are Senators present who can think of even more urgent ones. I am more specifically concerned with education.
But in what way is this committee of ours effective at all in getting in at the beginning of the initiation of legislation in Europe or, indeed, of affecting it materially before it gets up that pyramid to the top? What use ultimately to us as parliamentarians is it really to be told six months post hoc what has happened over there? Is this supposed to reassure us that we are in the ball game to some extent or that we are in a way part of that European Community which is forging communally a body of legislation? The answer to that has to be “no”. The process is a process that runs in two almost completely independent structures. There is the structure that moves from the Commission right to the top of the Council of Ministers, and then we are informed of it. The Minister assured us that this information would come in six-monthly reports, but these reports occur after the fact and they give us no opportunity at all of having influenced that legislation as it proceeded.
When the House of Commons and the House of Lords—and they acted separately on the matter—were faced with the kind of problem which our Government were faced with in the setting up of this committee, they went about it much more elaborately. Admittedly they went more slowly about it, but they went much more responsibly about it. They set up a committee to report, and to report on what sort of committee should be set up. The report is of course published and the few extracts that I am going to read for the record are from the First Report from the Select Committee on European Community Secondary Legislation. Together with the Proceedings of the Committee Minutes of Evidence and Appendices, Session 1972-73, published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office on the 13th February, 1973. The recommendations that they put forward were put forward in the face of a problem which they as a Parliament clearly felt very keenly indeed, and they seem to have felt it with a keenness that we have not been quite able to summon in Leinster House. It is quite a lengthy document and I will quote only one or two extracts from it. At paragraph 7 they suggested:
For each of the 300 or so legislative proposals from the Commission to the Council of Ministers each year there should be issued by Her Majesty's Government a statement in writing bearing the Reference No. of the Community proposal. This statement should include:—
(1) the general effect of the document, and its title.
(2) the UK Ministry which takes primary responsibility, indicating where appropriate what other Ministries have substantial but subsidiary responsibility.
(3) The effect which the proposed instrument would have on UK law and what supplementary and/or additional legislation would be introduced if the instrument were made; Your Committee is of the opinion that responsibility for this part of the statement should be placed on the Law Officers.
It goes on, and paragraph 7 ends in fact with this proposal:
That written statements will be required on all proposals current on 1st January, 1973, as they become available in English. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster——
I presume the equivalent of the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
——should undertake responsibility to issue these statements himself, or to obtain them from the Minister with primary responsibility; the Chancellor of the Duchy will thus have responsibility for the form and completeness of the statement and in most cases for sub-paragraph (5), dealing with the time schedule of the consideration of the proposals. Under the existing procedures of the House it will be possible to put questions to the Minister with primary responsibility for the proposal.
Now the suggestion is of course, in the case of this legislation coming through to Parliament, that a Minister will appear once a month, will report and questions may be tabled to that Minister. Is there any such proposal here? I am not aware that in the Dáil, for instance, as European legislation comes through we have TDs standing up with any kind of regularity and challenging the various enactments. But obviously the rationale behind this document which I am reading is that every month there will be a report, that all of the 300 legislative proposals be sifted, presented and described to Parliament as they proceed.
It is also implied in the document that a Minister for Foreign Affairs whose time is taken up so much with primarily the initial nitty-gritty of negotiation perhaps might not always be able to carry this burden and that a Minister without portfolio but a Minister largely concerned with the overall transfer of information from the negotiations of the European Community to the national Parliament might be appointed. I seem to recall that the Taoiseach made a similar suggestion when the present Government took office, somebody with an overall concern for European affairs might be appointed, somebody who could act as a kind of information officer and authority, and who might liaise with a committee like this, or might ultimately chair a committee such as the one we are talking about. It would clearly have the effect of at least keeping us informed about what was happening in Europe, what was happening through that large pipeline of secondary legislation there. Again for the record, at Section (B) of paragraph 9 the proposal is made that:
(B) A monthly statement in the House should be made by the Chancellor of the Duchy——
that is the Minister for Foreign Affairs or obviously somebody taking his place
——to accompany the list in (A), on which he could then be questioned.
He could be questioned therefore once a month on what was proceeding in Europe on anything that was relevant to the legislation in the home Parliament.
The statement would give Members the opportunity of eliciting what the forthcoming events in the Council would entail.
(C) The Chancellor of the Duchy, or if the subject warrants it, a particular Minister, should make a regular report to the House after each month's meeting of the Council of Ministers, similar to the statements made on a regular basis during the course of the pre-Accession negotiations.
(D) Ministers engaged in negotiations at Community institutions should report regularly to the House of Commons, if their negotiations are of sufficient importance.
I really think that this is important. What have we before us instead of that? What we have before us is an arrangement by which a six-monthly report will transfer to us information about laws which have been enacted in Europe which may materially concern our whole lives, the quality of our lives, if I might borrow that phrase, and we want to have an active part in influencing them. It is clear that the British Parliament saw this as a matter of extreme importance, but instead of acting with the same sense of responsibility in considering the challenge, we rather hastily put together a committee. They are an excellent committee—and I think that they are going to do a great deal of work and unpaid work which will be of value to us—but it is clear to a blind man that they need a secretariat, they need a research unit, they need facilities by which they can call before them—if that is not too peremptory a phrase—or invite to come and speak to them, members from every Department where legislation binding Europe and Ireland together is being initiated and enacted, and they should be in a position to bring out regular reports.
They have brought out this report on regional policy but what about a report on education? Now this is an area which is of extreme importance when you come to think of the whole posture of Ireland and Europe. The educational situation in Europe is notoriously political, and it has been argued that the situation in education in Ireland at the moment is becoming notoriously political. For instance, it has been frequently said that some of the more recent developments in education in Western Germany have been politically motivated, that they have been framed in order to support the regime of Herr Brandt. I think that may be an admirable political objective; it certainly is not a good longterm educational or cultural objective. If education in Europe is coming that much under the thumb of ideology I think it behoves us to think about our own ideology, how education stands with us, and how our whole educational policy here could be influenced by that structure that I have described enacting legislation which could radically change the whole quality of our education and perhaps drain off a good deal of its intellectual integrity and independence.
I am not suggesting that the recent statements by various Government Ministers are influenced by European considerations. I am not suggesting, for instance, that the Minister for Education's plans to reorientate the bias of our history teaching stemmed from Europe and I am not even saying that it derived from any kind of questionable or suspect political motivation. But it is a little bit disturbing when it comes side by side with the statement from the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs about the position of the Irish language and the false authority which he claims it has delegated to itself on our media and through our educational system. There is nothing in the statement made by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs that one could take exception to. All the statements are valid in themselves, but together with the bias suggested from the Department of Education a picture emerges where political considerations are an influence, as with similar developments on the Continent.
The Joint Committee have nothing like the resources required to inform us on questions of that kind. They have not a sufficient secretariat: they have not sufficient research resources; they do not have the right to invite senior civil servants to inform them about the progress or, indeed, the initiation of secondary legislation within Europe. They are largely reduced to the function of discussion, which, no doubt, will be very enlightened, and the other function which will be private industrious and self-sacrificing research which individually they may through their dedication and energy bring to the task.
As the committee is constituted at present I cannot see how it could bring with any acceptable immediacy reports on the European dimension to matters such as education, which is a central and a burning one, as it appears to be coming more tied up with ideology, environment, which is of vital importance, transport policy and the entire field of culture which is what lured many of us into Europe in the first instance. We felt that the benefits which would accrue from membership of the European Community would be primarily cultural. Once the economic race got under way such matters as cultural concerns were swiftly put to the end of the queue.
This committee could also have relevance to an expedition which was announced in the Press about a week ago, that is a dozen or more distinguished Irishmen are going to sell Ireland to Europe. That is what the headlines in the newspapers said. They are to talk about cultural and economic matters such as horse-riding, fishing and so on. It is a kind of ad hoc arrangement, and it may do some good; but that kind of expedition should have been seriously and lengthily pondered by a committee such as this, but a committee equipped with sufficient resources and research to find out precisely how such a team as this should be constituted: what should the follow-through be? To what extent should this constitute a large and continuous cultural assault on the ears of Europe? How should it be arranged, continued, orchestrated?
These questions have not got sufficient scrutiny nor have the committee had much opportunity of pursuing the one or the other. Therefore I repeat my feeling of irrelevance as a Parliamentarian looking at the structure I have described; looking at the reality that secondary legislation is all being moved through in an area virtually outside our control, brought back to us at six-month intervals after it has been enacted.
The House of Commons Report gives us a pointer in the right direction, in that, monthly reports would be a good idea. A Minister who would assist the Foreign Minister by taking special responsibility for informing the Houses of Parliament—while the Foreign Minister, as he states in his report, is so often unavoidably absent —a Minister without portfolio and who might become chairman of such a committee as the one I envisage. I also suggest that a constant feeding of information of the kind suggested in this Report of the Select Committee to the House of Commons would be of great advantage.
There is a strong case to be made for going back to what took place in the House of Commons. That is, let the committee function as it is doing, and doing well within its resources, but I urge on the Foreign Minister to set up another committee which would investigate after the model of the Select Committee of the House of Commons to think about what are the real challenges which a committee such as this must face. I have only vaguely sketched them. I am not an expert on these matters. I am speaking from an instinctual feeling for the inadequacy of that committee and what it should do and what it has an earthly chance of doing.
I suggest it continue to function, that it be given increased support and that another committee be set up to report to us as to what structures are needed to forge a meaningful link between that increasingly autonomous structure of Parliament producing secondary legislation and ourselves. Are we to be merely a kind of Greek chorus—speaking albeit the second official language—chanting "Well done" every six months after legislation has passed so far out of our control that all we could be said to be doing is providing some kind of decorative rhythmic beat to the activities taking place in what is a Community or should be a Community? It is with those recommendations that I salute the report.
I wish to speak on the economic effects of our entry into the EEC. As a pro-EEC Member I toured the country and spoke on the economic advantages of entry into the EEC. As a person employed in agriculture I naturally wish to speak on the common agricultural policy. Before our entry into the EEC in 1971 the production and the sale of milk to creameries was in the region of 520 million gallons. That was subsidised at the rate of £70 million. This year it is estimated that over 600 million gallons of milk will be sold to creameries. Again it is estimated, even basing the price on the products sold through intervention, that the financial feed-back to farmers will rise from £70 million to over £140 million. I am very pleased that this is so because when I toured the country at that time I said that we would expect that by 1974 we would have 600 million gallons of milk supplied to creameries and, by 1980, 1,000 million gallons. We estimate the value of that 1,000 million gallons of milk at something in the region of over 25p a gallon. This would give a feed-back to farmers of over £250 million. That is extraordinary if you just think about the value of money. It is an increase of from £70 million in 1971 to £300 million by 1980. That, in itself, proves to me that we should be happy about our entry to the EEC.
Before 1971 we had a surplus of butter. We had to export that butter. If we think back to 1970-71 we know that we sold that surplus butter at a shilling a lb. This will never happen again. It cannot ever happen again because of the intervention price structure. But we should not be satisfied with the cost of producing milk, the cost of producing produce such as butter, skim powder, chocolate crumb, casein, or any of the other products that we get from milk. We are still not efficient enough to get the maximum for our producers. I should like to read a few lines from Membership of the European Community, April, 1970, page 37:
The capacity of Irish creameries and manufacturers of dairy products to create for their suppliers a return equivalent to the common target price will depend on the ruling prices of the manufacturing industry and the efficiency of that industry.
I agree with that. I agree also that a big effort has taken place within the past 12 months. I congratulate the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries on his involvement but I would ask him to look again at the section of the industry that is still not amalgamated or organised as it should be and part of that industry is in Lansdowne. The Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries should take it upon himself to invite the Creamery Managers' Association and the people involved to come together to try to do something about that.
In 1973 calves were bought and sold at £60 to £70 each. That was a price far beyond their value. We are now, in 1974, coming to a realistic price for calves. They were too low early in the year but have increased now due to an increased price for cattle. Within the next few weeks we will have a realistic price for calves, leading, in turn, to a realistic price for beef. If one buys calves at too high a price then one cannot get the profit one would expect from the sale of beef. I would advise farmers, in future—before they rush in viewing the lining which they imagine is gold instead of silver—to look ahead and think clearly of what they must spend to get the maximum value from their investment.
If we and Britain were not members of the EEC we would be selling products cheaply to that country. But there is no guarantee that we would even get the price we were getting before our entry because the EEC itself could flood Britain. We had proof of that when they sold butter to the USSR for £100 a ton. No matter what agreement we might have with Britain, if she were offered butter at £100 a ton, I am sure she would not refuse it.
In-calf heifers were bought and are still being bought at £200 each. Before our entry into the EEC we found it difficult enough to sell any fair heifer at £60 to £70. This, in itself, is an investment in farming and a guarantee that farmers have developed an interest in their dairy herds and in their produce. If they see fit to buy good heifers at £200 each they know they will gain by selling the produce of that heifer either through intervention or at a worldwide price.
Our entry to the EEC has shown us the value of land because today it is in the region of £500 to £600 a statute acre. The year prior to our entry to the EEC land increased in value because of our intention to join. Prior to that we could buy land at £100 to £200 and acre. Now it is making £600 an acre. In itself that is proof that our entry to the EEC was the right thing to do.
I advise farmers now to stay in the pig business and to invest further in pig production. Even before we entered the EEC and now in it there has been a cycle; at this point we have a situation where there is going to be a void in pig meat in England and in the North of Ireland. If anybody was looking at television last week he would have heard what the farmers in the North of Ireland are doing and demanding. They are getting out of the pig business, and the same thing is happening in England. Therefore, there will be a substantial market for our pigs in future. I am sure the Minister will be able to tell me whether we could, for a short period of, say, six months or so, help the pig producer by subsidising him or allowing him a low interest rate on any credit he might need. We need a pig industry. Since I was a young lad I heard my parents say that it was from pigs and pig meat that the farmers of Ireland developed. If we look back over a period of years investment in the pig industry has been enormous. It is a pity that the investment goes into groups of pig industries. I would think that there is also a case for the farmer breeding quality pigs.
I should like to ask the Minister how near we are to having sheep included in the common agricultural policy based on the intervention price structure. We heard, before our entry into the EEC, that we were very close to it but I think that we are as far away from it today as we were at that time. I would ask the Minister to ask the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries, Deputy Clinton, to put more pressure on members and Ministers of the EEC, to allow sheep into the common agricultural system. From time to time, like pigs, there is a cycle in sheep. But had we an intervention based structure, we could guarantee the farmer a minimum price for his sheep. It is an extraordinary situation that, at certain times of the year, France imports lamb from Ireland; then, at the stroke of a pen, can terminate that arrangement. We are then left in the position where we have lamb, sheep and mutton on our hands for which we have to accept a lower price.
I take this opportunity of advising our farmers to think now about extra tillage. If we can produce our own feeding stuffs, then we are producing cheap feed for farm stock. We have had a situation where, in 1973 and 1974, dry barley has been fetching £70 per ton. To me this is an extraordinary price. If we produced barley and got £45 per ton for it the farmers would be pleased. In the springtime we sow barley, expecting a price of £40 per ton. Then, after selling that barley, we find we have to buy it back at £70 per ton. This is wrong. Perhaps our entry into the EEC had no bearing on that. It is probably an international affair. Even so, I would still advise farmers to till the extra land and to grow more barley, wheat and feeding stuffs.
At the time of our entry into the EEC it was stated that there would be a huge unemployment problem. The proof today is that our numbers of unemployed are lower now than they were 12 months ago. I would say to those people who said we would have a large unemployment problem, that if they think back on what they said and realise that present unemployment is not as great as they anticipated but has improved since our entry into the EEC, I should imagine they would accept the situation and be glad that we are in the EEC.
If I were to ask myself at the moment if I am as enthusiastic now as I was in 1971 about our entry into the EEC, I would say "yes". In fact I would think that I would be more enthusiastic. We have problems; we realised we would have problems. We would not be faced with many of the current problems were it not for the international situation. Our entry into the EEC had an effect on the increases in our salaries and wages because of the flow of money coming into our country. We are enabled now to pay more to the worker and the salary earner, which is only right. Whether or not we are paying him enough now is a matter of opinion. I think workers today, especially those in the industry in which I am employed, are entitled to still more. I am sure that situation will rectify itself in the years ahead.
Our social welfare beneficiaries are gaining also because of our entry into the EEC, because of our investments there, the sale of our produce, money that is coming back into the country and the saving of our subsidies. All of this is helping the social welfare community. I welcome this and I know that in ensuing years they will gain more and more. This is indeed a happy situation in which to be.
There are two other questions I would like to raise before concluding. One is in regard to the matter of tax on farmers. We hear a lot about taxes on farmers at present. I feel that this is not the year to tax farmers. Farmers have had and are having their problems. As we all know the price of feeding, the price of this that and the other thing, has increased. Because of the ups and downs the farmers have had to put up with in 1973-74, I feel this is not the time to tax them. Now is the time to allow them develop, to allow them help us again, to increase the volume of produce whether it be milk, beef, sheep, pigs, barley, wheat or anything else. Now is the time to allow the farmer develop to a higher degree, to educate himself and to think ahead. If we can allow the farmers another year or two without taxation, that would be a good thing.
I am involved myself in the dairying industry—being a member of the Creamery Managers' Association. I should be grateful if the Minister could give me the following information. If we read again from the publication Membership of the European Communities, at page 34; we find it says:
(a) to support prices on the internal markets of the Community by market intervention measures;
How much do we receive from that?
(b) to finance exports of agricultural products to non-member countries where necessary;
How much was received under heading (b)? And:
(c) to contribute towards the cost of appropriate changes in the agricultural structures in member States.
Each and every one of those are vital headings and I would like to have as much information as possible on them.
I think this debate has been a very useful one and I hope the Minister will agree that it has been worthwhile. The primary purpose of the debate was to discuss and comment on the Second Report of Developments in the European Communities. If the debate has ranged rather wider than that field, I think the Minister will appreciate that the views expressed here today do represent those of a large section of the people of this country. Looking cold-bloodedly at the second report one might be carried away with the belief that everything in the garden is rosy as regards the European Economic Community, particularly since the accession of Great Britain, Denmark and ourselves.
Looking rather deeper between the lines, there are obvious stresses and strains which should be examined now after 12 months operation of the enlarged Community. Like other speakers, I campaigned 18 months ago in favour of this country's accession to the European Community. Like Senator Butler, if I had to take to the hustings again, I would feel exactly the same about it. With the benefit of hindsight I might not express my views in exactly the same way. Basically, I would be as firmly in favour of this country's participation in the European Economic Community as I was 18 months or two years ago, but it might be harder to sell this time had one to take to the hustings again. I have no illusions whatever now but that it would be a harder job to sell the advantages of membership of the Community. Human nature being what it is, people tend to blame the misfortunes or disadvantages of any development before they give credit for the benefits. Such burning questions as increased prices, the slump in the price of cattle and so on have been wrongly laid at the door of our membership of the Community. It would be very wrong if this impression was to gather any momentum. The striking, practical advantages that this country has enjoyed over the past 15 months should be emphasised more than is being done at the present time.
In conjunction with the second report on developments in the European Communities it is rather salutary to consider a speech made recently and circulated to all Members of the Oireachtas on the state of the Community by the President of the Commission, M. Francois Xavier Ortoli, made in the name of himself and his colleagues on January 31st of this year. Some of the comments of M. Ortoli are in somewhat striking contrast to the encouraging second report on the developments in the European Communities. I should like to quote from one or two paragraphs. I do not wish to do so with any ulterior motive or to suggest that the EEC is at a crisis point but it is interesting to consider some of the comments of the President of the Commission, in the light of the report and also in the light of criticisms and compliments which have passed in our national newspapers and by word of mouth amongst politicians themselves. In his opening statement M. Ortoli says:
Europe now faces a stern test, a new situation that all too clearly exposes its weaknesses and lack of independence and shows up just how badly it needs to be united. At this time of challenge Europe itself is in a state of crisis, a crisis of confidence, of will and of clarity of purpose. The perils are such that the Commission has a duty to call upon the heads of State and Government and, through them, the citizens of our countries to honour by their deeds their decision to unite Europe and to respond to the challenges before us by resolutely acting together.
Then he goes on to talk about some of the failures over the past 12 months or longer:
The European Regional Development Fund, a touch stone of our solidarity, has still not been set up despite the undertakings given at Paris and Copenhagen that it would be established by the end of 1973. The transition to a second stage of economic and monetary union has been put on ice. Again the Community has so far failed to define its position towards the rest of the world on several major issues such as negotiations with the countries of the Mediterranean Basin....
Half way down his speech he asks the various Governments of the members to give a clear answer to two questions:
On behalf of those they govern can the economic and monetary policies of our member states continue to ignore each other and go their different ways or does the interdependence that has already been established between our economies and the fact that we face the same problems in our dealings with the outside world demand a farreaching harmonisation of our aims and our policies? At a time when international relations are being reshaped with crucial consequences for us all, is there any State in Europe that can exert real influence and carry any weight comparable to that of a united Europe? The time has come to say clearly whether our nations wish to re-enforce their solidarity or not and whether they wish to react jointly or separately to the great internal and external challenges that each one of them faces.
In his concluding remarks is the following:
European unity will move forward again only if there is a lasting change in the behaviour of our States. They must adopt a new mentality that displays a greater resolve and lends added weight to European policies in shaping the future of our peoples and that change of attitude must be convincing both within and beyond our frontiers.
I suppose they might be described as cold words but nonetheless realistic. They should not be regarded as discouragement. As I said earlier on, we are at a time of stock-taking particularly with the larger nine-Member community. We in this country, and particularly in the Houses of Parliament, have a duty and obligation to consider our attitudes to the Community and most importantly, to consider the sacrifices we are prepared to make in the interests of the good will of the entire Community.
I remember speaking here perhaps two years ago now before we joined the EEC and saying that if we were going into the EEC for one reason and guided by one hope—that was to get all we could out of it—we would be far better if we stayed out. Unless we were prepared to participate on a basis of giving as well as getting, our hopes for the Community would be evaporated very quickly. I feel exactly the same about it today.
That is why I was concerned this morning, while listening to Senator Lenihan's speech, which on the whole was a very helpful, constructive and able one, praising the attitude of the French because they were prepared to act independently in the interests of France, which were not necessarily concomitant with the interests of the Community as a whole. I have a great respect for the French people. I think they have contributed possibly more than any other nation to the well-being of Europe and to civilisation over the centuries. The French are an individualistic people, not unlike our own in that regard. However, I question whether the French attitude in monetary affairs has been the right attitude. I do not suggest for one moment that it has not been the right attitude for France, but does that necessarily mean that it is in the best interests of the Community as a whole? The best person to answer that question is probably the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I do pose that question because two years ago I was very conscious of making the point that unless we for our part were prepared to make some sacrifices and to sink our individuality and to some degree our independence of action in joining the Community we could not regard ourselves as being true Europeans. If we were not prepared to do what we asked others to do we would have been far better to remain out of the Community which I think would have been a disaster.
Senator Lenihan spoke about the structures of the European Parliament. I would agree wholeheartedly with a lot of what he said. I spoke along somewhat similar lines 18 months or two years ago. Direct election to the European Parliament must come. How soon it can come I do not pretend to know. Ultimately it must come. The Community are evolving towards that arrangement. Taking our own domestic position here it would be unrealistic, to say the least of it, to hope that Deputies who are members of the European Parliament can hope to give the time and attention to the affairs of Europe that they would like and that most of them would wish to give and at the same time nurse their constituencies with the next general election constantly in their minds. It just cannot be done. It is unfair to expect our Deputies to do that.
For that reason I would wholeheartedly agree with Senator Lenihan that there should be elections to the European Parliament independently of national elections. I feel, and I think I am interpreting it correctly, that if we do have elections, whether they take place at the same time as our general elections or whether elections to the European Parliament should be held at different times and, for a fixed period of years, on the American system is immaterial. What is material is that the ten or 15 representatives we would be entitled to elect to the European Parliament should be elected to that Parliament and to that Parliament only. Our domestic elections should take place on a different scale.
I realise that that process could be criticised on the grounds that if you elect ten or 15 members to Europe you are electing them largely to govern your affairs at a considerable distance from the country and possibly too detached from the realities of the Irish situation. I do not think that would arise or could arise as long as they are elected by popular franchise. If they were to be indirectly elected in some form such as we elect them now, if the political parties were to elect them or some other system of indirect election were to take place, then I think there would be a valid criticism that these men or women, as the case may be, might be too divorced from the ground level situation in their home country. I do not see that happening. I certainly would urge the Minister for Foreign Affairs to use his influence to push forward this idea of direct elections at the earliest possible date.
I can see certain difficulties arising. For instance, in the situation in our own country, a divided country where representatives from the United Kingdom would presumably, at that stage anyway, include representatives from the North of Ireland and our representatives would be elected directly in the Twenty-six Counties. I see difficulties in that regard. It is a pity that it has to be so. We will have so much cross-Border interests in the years ahead that it would be a wonderful event if we could elect ten from the South and five from the North, going forward to represent this island of Ireland with its common difficulties and its common objectives. I think that would be the ideal to aim at. Whether in conjunction with the Council of Ireland we could do that is something I could not hope to answer at this stage. It is something to aim towards. If our representatives from the island of Ireland can join with the election or setting up of a Council of Ireland, can act in that sphere, then we will be acting for one country, one island with common problems, north, south, east and west.
The method of election, I suppose, would pose certain problems. I think it must be by proportional representation. Without wishing to be crystal gazing, I think the time is probably approaching when there will be changes in the British electoral system. I am not saying that because the Liberals got 18 or 20 seats in the last general election. The time is coming when if the British are going to be Europeans they must adopt more and more the methods of elections and the other institutions which are common among their partners in the European Economic Community. The time is probably coming when a revised form of proportional representation will be used for the British general elections.
One possible danger which may arise, with the change of Government in Great Britain and the talk about re-negotiating the terms, could be or might be a watering down of the terms of the common agricultural policy. That is something which I am quite certain our representatives, particularly the Minister for Foreign Affairs, would resist tooth and nail. The primary reason, as other speakers, including Senator Butler, have said, for our selling membership of the EEC, and selling it so convincingly at the time, was the undoubted advantage that would accrue to the farming community and through the farming community to every sector of this country.
Those hopes have been to a large extent realised, nothwithstanding stresses and strains in regard to cattle, in particular, the enormous increase in the price of cereals of all kinds, and importation of protein meals. In spite of all these, which would have occurred in any event, everybody will agree that membership of the EEC has been an outstanding advantage to the agricultural community and will go on being so provided that CAP is preserved, if not completely, certainly substantially in its present form. It will be a disaster if under pressure from the large industrial nations such as Great Britain and Germany there were to be any watering down in that area. It is something that must be resisted at all costs. Mr. Wilson made statements in Opposition—where a lot of declarations are made from time to time and not always subsequently put into effect, though made with goodwill at the time, I hasten to add—but he may find now that what he held out to the British electorate during the past couple of years may not be possible to put into operation for various practical reasons.
One may be that Mr. Wilson may not be able to do it. I do not know whether you can re-negotiate the terms of entry. It is something that I have never had an answer to. It is a grandiose expression and I am sure it got a lot of votes for Mr. Wilson at the last election because one senses—I know I do myself from contacts in England—that there is a certain disillusionment there about membership of the Common Market. It arises not directly from membership of the Common Market, although the Common Market is blamed, but because of the general malaise in England at the moment, economic and social. Looking around for something or somebody to blame, the Common Market is a useful scapegoat. Certainly the former MP, Mr. Enoch Powell, did not lose an opportunity, nearly every time he opened his mouth, which was fairly frequently, to blame the ills of England on membership of the Common Market. When a country is going through a phase of disillusionment with itself it looks around for some excuse, very often away from the real reason for the malaise, uncertainties, disappointments or frustrations. In this regard the Common Market unfairly has been blamed by a large section of the British people for their current troubles which can be put down to far different reasons.
There is talk about a referendum in Great Britain. I cannot guess how such a referendum would work out. It is possible that it might confirm that public opinion in Great Britain is against the EEC. From contacts and conversations I have had with British industrialists I am inclined to think it would at this time. The farming community literally do not count for a lot in England but industrial employment does count for a lot. From time to time I have spoken to people whom I would regard as strong Europeans and I was amazed to find among them the growing feeling that we would be better off out of the EEC. To the positive question, "What would you do then?" they were not quite so convincing. Did they feel they could export to countries other than the EEC? I was not very convinced on that ground.
I merely make the point because I feel from personal and other contacts that there is a large section—at this juncture I should not like to say it is a majority or a minority—of the population in England who are anti-EEC. Maybe there are historic or traditional reason for that—England's traditional position in the world as an off-shore, mercantile, very independent nation not wanting involvement in Europe apart from the odd wars down the years, standing aside from people they often regard as of lesser breed than themselves. Maybe that is behind this to some degree.
There it is. It might, and I underline the word "might", come to the situation where England might re-negotiate the terms and, failing to re-negotiate the terms they wanted, might decide to disengage from membership of the EEC. If that were to happen what would our attitude be in the matter? I know these are all "ifs" and "buts" and I cannot base future policy on guesswork, but it is something we should be thinking about even though we might regard it as a most unlikely eventuality. It is something we should be thinking about, and in our circumstances whole-heartedly—or I would say almost wholeheartedly in this country in favour still of membership. Having a divided country it would pose us a very serious national problem if England by any chance were to pull out. I hope that our feelings would be that notwithstanding the economic and social difficulties it would cause for us with our close economic connection with Great Britain, although a declining connection, I would hope that our resolve would be to continue membership of the EEC notwithstanding the difficulties that England's withdrawal would entail.
In any assessment of the progress or lack of progress in some degrees of the EEC one must have regard to the countries who individually make up the EEC. One has to look back into history to see the warring countries of Europe, to see the rivalries, to see the various events that have shaped the individual history of the countries— nationalism, religion, power-hunger, rivalries for industrial expansion, and in the case of England the policy of cheap food for her emerging industrial masses and in the case of our own country the desire for independence and freedom to rule ourselves and to develop our human and material resources for the benefit of all our people.
All these traditions, aspirations, the various currents and cross-currents in the history of Europe, particularly among the individual nations, have to some extent contributed to the problems of today. I feel one should not be too restless or too dissatisfied if Europe does not unite into a solid, independent block in a matter of a short period of years. It would not be possible to expect that. If things are going along the right lines, within a reasonable period of time the nations of Europe will find common cause. With goodwill and the desire to sink individual differences and to make individual sacrifices for the good of all, then we will have the sort of united Europe that men like Maurice Schumann dreamed and talked about in the past years.
It would be foolish to expect that all the age-old rivalries between the nations of Europe will disappear in the short term, even if the overriding interests is the common good of all of them. It will be a gradual process which will take a great measure of goodwill and dedication to the principles of European unity so eloquently and sincerely announced by great Europeans like Maurice Schumann, principles that did not always appear to have support from the representatives of his own country. Nationalism, which was mentioned by other Senators today, is something that is playing a very important role at the moment. It is inevitable it should be. Nationalism is a noble ideal when it has for its purpose the welfare and progress of a people. However, excessive nationalism inspired by national selfishness can be a dangerous and divisive entity and entirely incompatible with the common interests of a group of nations. The motto of the three Musketeers, "One for all and all for one," might at times be echoed in the hearts and minds of the fellow countrymen of Dumas.
One matter—reference to it does not appear for obvious reasons in the report we are considering today—that must exercise a great deal of influence on the economies and social developments in Europe is the energy crisis through which all countries in Europe are passing at the present time. This again has unfortunately resulted in unilateral action being taken by some countries, understandably, in the interests of their own members, but not, I suggest, making a great contribution towards a spirit of goodwill which should permeate the nine countries of the EEC. If the energy crisis or, indeed, any other major crisis is to be resolved, in the interest of all Europeans and all members of the European Economic Community it must be done jointly by all the members acting together, and if necessary some individual sacrifices will have to be made.
I think that we in this country are more conscious of the desire for unity of purpose because our situation is such that at this stage we have little or no sources of energy beyond peat. It is hopeful that the developments in the off-shore of our island may produce a valuable source of energy by finding oil and gas, but that is still in the future. If that should happen there certainly would be a revolution in our own economy which would help to solve many of the difficulties we are having at the present time with balance of payments and enormous price increases in goods and services of all kinds. At this juncture we cannot consider this as a practical proposition. I think there are good reasons for hoping that it may come about that oil will be found off the coast of Ireland in our constitutional waters, waters under our jurisdiction. If it does it will change the whole situation. But until it is found we must hope that joint action between all the nations of Europe will result in our small country getting a fair share of the available energy resources.
Mention was also made of the multi-national corporations whose size and powers straddle even national boundaries and I should like to add my voice to the necessity for controlling these giants if they are not to control the individual countries themselves. It has been suggested—with what validity I do not know—that some of the petrol companies made enormous profits out of the recent energy crisis. I do not know on what evidence these assertions are made It may be necessary that some form of inquiry should be held to establish the validity or otherwise of these statements. Again, as I said, they are made without any intimate knowledge of the situation. But one thing is certain: the power of multi-national corporations is growing to an alarming extent.
I am not suggesting for one moment that it is necessarily a bad thing. I think in some forms of production and distribution you must of necessity have big corporations because the efforts involved are so enormous and the technological brains that have to be purchased are so expensive that only very large corporations can do it. However, in the final analysis it is the sovereign states who should decide what is best for their own people, not any giant corporations, whether they be petrol or oil companies. The principle should be there that only sovereign governments will decide in the final analysis what is a fair share for all their people.
Most of the speeches have been to some extent repetition. I suppose that is inevitable and I think the Minister deserves our warmest thanks for sitting through our deliberations through the whole day. I hope that they have been of some help to him anyway. They represent, to a degree anyway, the feelings of the people we represent in Parliament, even if the Senators are not directly elected. Many of them are members of smaller bodies like county and city councils, such as myself, and to some extent we represent the feelings at grass roots.
I should like to leave it with just one thought. I think it is important that, notwithstanding the stresses and strains to which the Community, understandably in my view, are passing through, our resolve in this country is still absolutely that we made the right decision to go in 18 months ago and I think that that decision would be reinforced notwithstanding the difficulties that have since arisen. I conclude by congratulating and complimenting the Minister for Foreign Affairs for his energetic efforts on behalf of this country while at the same time I think giving an example of what a good European can do. I think I speak not only for myself but for all the Members of this House irrespective of their political affiliations.
The referendum on whether we should join the EEC resulted in a decisive vote in favour of entry, but I believe at the present time that if a similar referendum were held again the result would be much less decisive. It might be fifty-fifty or in certain circumstances maybe even a vote against. I believe that that sums up the disillusionment that prevails in the country at the present time with our membership of the EEC and the results that have come.
I am not saying that I favour that. I believe firmly that EEC membership is good for us in the long run and I believe that it is good for Europe and for the world in general that the EEC should continue to exist and continue to develop and that we can look forward to the day when we have something in the nature of the United States of Western Europe.
I think that any Member of this House that believes there is disillusionment should say so and that the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the course of his negotiations in Europe would then be in a position to express the view to his colleagues out there that our membership for the past 15 months has resulted in this disillusionment. I do not have to be specific as to what way farmers are not satisfied. There are a number of causes for the prevailing depression that exists with regard to livestock. It is true that the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries warned the farmers as far back as last July as to the course they should take. It is true, too, that a bad summer and fodder situation have contributed. That is entirely outside the competence of the EEC but it has tended to build up this dissatisfaction that prevails.
Whatever the farming community in general might think about the value of membership of the EEC, pig producers as a whole are grievously dissatisfied with what it has meant to them and believe that if some radical change does not take place in the near future it will mean they will have to go out of business.
All that build-up means that there is a certain amount of dissatisfaction with our membership as of today. At the same time, I think it is only right to put it on record that I believe that even among those who are not happy with how things have been going there is a widespread appreciation all over the country of the work that has been done by our Minister for Foreign Affairs, Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries and Minister for Industry and Commerce. I think that is indisputable. Everybody appreciates the great efforts we are making but they believe that they are confronted by an unwilling group of people who do not see the things as we thought they were going to see them.
There are reasons for the EEC having difficulties in getting off the ground. You have the basically fundamental different approach by various member countries, for example, Great Britain and France. We have a common interest with France in so far as we want the best obtainable price for our agricultural produce and France wants the same thing. The British have a different approach. They want cheap food and that is that, so that you have a fundamental difference there. At the present time the greatest difficulty confronting the EEC is with regard to the Germans; and in so far as there is a clash developing between the EEC countries and the United States of America we could be heading for serious trouble. Germany is partitioned, mainly as a result of the power of the Soviet Union. Germany is in the front line between Western Europe and Soviet Russia. Any clash which would tend to develop bad relations between the EEC and the United States of America is bound to have serious repercussions in Germany, as they are very sensitive on that point.
They are in perpetual fear of this clash developing to such a degree that the US would withdraw their armed forces from West Germany. If the Minister for Foreign Affairs is in a position to prevent such a state of affairs developing he will be doing a good service not only to this country but to Western Europe. This is the most serious, underlying cause of trouble at present.
Germany is expected to make the greatest contribution towards the regional development fund and they must be unhappy with the developing relations with the US. The leadership in the US at the present time is not the most inspiring. Some of the statements made lately are definitely not conducive to improving relations between the US and Western Europe. They are being made as if the potential conflict between Western Europe and Soviet Russia had been swept under the carpet and forgotten about.
It is not long since it was thought necessary to build up a strong economy in Western Europe and amass a large fund directed towards that object for the purpose of developing Western Europe and enabling it to withstand pressure from the big Soviet bloc. That kind of thinking has evaporated in the US and has led to difficulty here with regard to the operation of the EEC and to the bringing together of the different nations which comprise it. The ordinary man in the street in Western Europe and in America was shattered by the attitude of the EEC towards the energy crisis. The British and the French tried to make private deals with the oil sheiks to protect their own interests without giving any serious thought to the best interests of the Community as a whole.
That gives rise to some scepticism about the future of the EEC and the probability of it ever achieving the goal that inspired those who drew up the Treaty of Rome. I agree with the statements made by Senator Russell and Senator Lenihan about multi-national corporations. It has been stated that there are multi-nationalist corporations who are much more powerful and have done more to shape the future of man than Governments have. Anything which can be done to smash that is to be lauded. It is not right for a multi-national corporation to have an undue influence on shaping our destiny, nor is it right for a trade union to have undue influence.
The Governments elected by the democratic voice of the people have the final say. These governments, working in conjunction with each other for the common good of the different nations, should have all the influence. The shaping of the destiny of the human race should not be vested in the hands of multi-millionaires or the groups of people they assemble around them. Anything we can do to direct the EEC towards that objective would be welcome.
This has been a very interesting debate, more wide-ranging than most of the EEC debates we have had, one which has not confined itself solely to economic issues but has concerned itself with broader questions of the European ideal and what our aim should be in that direction. It has dealt also with other political matters such as direct elections.
I should like first to deal with some of the economic points which have been raised and then to speak on some of the other aspects. Quite a number of points have been raised on the economic side. I have noted with interest the recurrence of references to the problem of multi-nationals referred to by Senator Lenihan, Senator Russell and just now by Senator A. O'Brien. We have become aware of this because of the energy crisis, but concern for this problem does antedate that. The Danish Government, during their presidency of the Community in the second half of last year, asked that this matter should be considered by the Community. It has also been considered at the United Nations. Recent developments have concentrated attention on the multi-nationals in the oil sector. At the Washington Energy Conference the European countries asked that this be added to the agenda proposed by the United States. When it was suggested that we should look only at the future activities of multi-nationals in the energy sphere, the European countries insisted that it should not be confined in that way but that their activities, past, present and future should be considered.
That is not to condemn their activities. The benefits which have accrued to the world through the efficiency of the operation of these companies on the scale they operate are very great. The problem is not that they have developed in a wrong way. It is that the world political system has not kept pace with them and is incapable of balancing them in the same way as a national government is able to control and balance the activities of companies within its own territory.
It is an inadequacy on the political side rather than a particular fault on the commercial side that is involved here. It is something about which all the countries of the world are seriously concerned and which is in the process of being tackled.
Senator Quinlan made a particular reference here to the development of any natural gas or oil resources we may have and suggested that these should be exploited in conjunction with European countries rather than in conjunction with multi-nationals. I note the point. It is not so simple because a number of the companies in Europe with which we would be dealing are multi-nationals, and in giving concessions for exploration one is concerned to get the best returns. If a multi-national operating on adequate control could give the best financial return to this country, one would have to bear that in mind before taking a policy decision. Nevertheless the point made by Senator Quinlan is worth noting.
The question of economic and monetary union was referred to by a number of Senators and the link between it and regional policy was emphasised. Senator E. Ryan stated this had not been sufficiently emphasised in the past and that this link is important, as indeed it is, because in the case of revision of policies we are by no means relying solely on the question of development towards economic and monetary union. It certainly is reinforced by the stated intention to move towards such a union. Certainly for a country like Ireland at our stage of development to accept the discipline of economic and monetary union without substantial regional aid would be to put our economy at risk, which we do not intend to do.
In discussing regional policy in the Community therefore I have emphasised this particular aspect of it and emphasised that the regional policy proposals of the Commission, even indeed if they were modified as regards distribution of the resources in our favour, are not really on a scale sufficient to make it possible for a country like ours to contemplate economic and monetary union within a relatively short period. I emphasised that it will be necessary to re-examine the whole scale of these resources as well as the allocation in the latter part of the 1970s if there was a serious intention of trying to secure the achievement of economic and monetary union by the end of 1980 as is planned.
Senator Lenihan and Senator Alexis FitzGerald referred to the regional policy as a test of the sincerity of the Community. I accept that. There has not been evidence of complete sincerity in the policies adopted by member states in regard to regional policy. However these difficulties may be overcome. They have been aggravated by the fact that there is a triangle of conflicting interests in the three leading powers in the Community—Britain seeking to get some regional policy benefits which could be put forward to its people as compensation for what are seen as short-term losses in other sectors like agricultural policy; the French Government's concern that Britain should not secure benefits not open to France, France itself having internally significant regional problems; and the German Government being unwilling to pay out money on the scale necessary to deal with these British and French requirements as well as the much more severe and real need of countries like Italy and Ireland.
To balance those three is difficult. As I mentioned in my opening speech, I did attempt to do so in a compromise proposal last December. This suggested how a fund much smaller than the Commission had proposed, and not much above the figure which Germany then seemed willing to contemplate, could be divided in a way that would secure for Italy and Britain the benefits the Commission proposed and would secure for this country the much larger benefit that we would need, given our particular difficulties and given the problem that we do not have any well-off parts of the country to draw on. Even Dublin, which we regard as relatively prosperous, is by the standards of the Community a poor area with a standard of living about 35 per cent lower than the Community average. Therefore Dublin cannot be regarded in Community terms as a wealthy area which could support the rest of the country. Even Dublin itself is at a level which would need assistance from the rest of the Community.
We are not pressing that issue in the sense of suggesting that our internal policy should be anything other than one in favour of development of a decentralised character. If we can make the case that for the purpose of receiving aid from the Community the Dublin area itself is at the point of development that needs it, then when we get the aid we can make sure that it is then distributed not to Dublin but as far as possible to other parts of the country.
Perhaps we will find a solution to that problem in the near future. The EEC Commission have other proposals to put forward. They would not, as I understand them, yet meet our needs. We could vet find ourselves in a position where we would have to say such proposals were unacceptable even if others accepted them. I hope not to be left in that position, but if our vital interests are at stake, as they could be here, we shall defend them. We have not many vital interests to defend but that is all the more reason that those we have be defended. We will only secure a balanced Europe if the smaller countries as well as the larger defend their much more limited vital interests.
Farm modernisation was taken up by a number of Senators and somewhat divergent views were expressed. Senator Dolan was most fearful of its effects on small farmers. Another Senator was worried as to whether farmers who are not in a development category would receive benefits. Senator McCartin pointed out that one way or the other the great bulk of farmers would benefit either by being in the category where they could get assistance to leave farming should they wish to do so, or in the category of those who would be treated as development farmers and get special assistance to develop their farms.
The grant provisions for farmers who fall between these two categories are, if anything, more generous now under this new scheme than they were previously. No one really is left out. Those farmers who are not at the moment in a position to qualify to become development farmers can do so in the years ahead by reaching a level of income which would be the necessary starting point from which to leap forward to the income target within the Community. The grant which such farmers would get would help them to reach that starting point. I do not want to develop details here. In the other House there was a rather extensive discussion of this point during the equivalent debate to this. I replied at some length and in some detail to detailed questions which were not posed in this House. May I say the debate in this House has kept more within the realm of what is appropriate to a general debate of this kind than the other House? I am glad that it has been dealt with generally and that people have not gone into the kind of detail which is frankly difficult for the Minister for Foreign Affairs to reply to adequately. Matters which are more appropriate to Departmental Ministers sometimes tend to be raised in a debate of this kind.
I was asked by Senator Butler what aid we had received from the EEC. I do not want to give a precise answer to this because there are difficulties. There are certain types of aid where one's applications for the year 1973 go in but you do not get the money out until sometime afterwards. Indeed there are cases where it will be some months yet before we know how much we will have received in respect of 1973. Broadly speaking, the FEOGA guarantee section payments in the calendar year 1973 is, as the Supplementary Report says, £36,200,000. That is not a full year's figure because we only started benefiting in February. One would really want to take the 12 months to January or even the 12 months to February of this year to get a full year. It is running at the rate of just under £40 million a year at the moment, I think. In addition to that there was about £500,000 of intervention reimbursements. We have applications in for £12 million in grants under the structural improvement of production and marketing.
The farm modernisation scheme is not in existence and therefore we have not benefited from it yet. When it is in existence and when these funds are flowing freely the amounts we will receive in respect of agriculture will be very large. It is highly unlikely they would not exceed £50 million a year. They may in time exceed that figure by a good deal. Certainly I think we can more or less count on something in excess of £50 million a year when the system is actually operating.
There are other benefits apart from the regional fund, which does not yet exist. European Bank loans, which are significant, are likely to raise further. Social fund payments as well, though not as great, are significant in their own way, assisting industry particularly in regard to training. The total benefits from EEC membership, when we are in a position to quantify them accurately by being long enough in for the pattern to have developed, will be seen to be very substantial indeed. If the regional fund gets off the ground it would not be long before the Exchequer benefits would exceed £100 million a year, including loans from the European Investment Bank. The major part of benefit is in the security of access to a huge market for Irish farmers and in the price levels that are secured by membership. The benefits to farmers will in time exceed significantly the Exchequer gains that I have referred to.
Senator Dolan and Senator McCartin spoke of the banks and of the need for them to play their part in risk-taking and in helping when an unexpected crisis arrives. I was glad to hear them say that. I am sure the banks will take account of the points they have made. We all know the problems that arise in Irish agriculture and in of course agriculture anywhere. It is a particularly uncertain type of economic activity, one which I should myself never have the courage, never mind the skill, to engage in. When crises arise for reasons outside the control of farmers obviously those who are helping to finance them must take account of these special difficulties. I think the two Senators were right to raise that and I hope some account will be taken of it.
Senator Lenihan raised the question of the green £1. I do not want to go beyond saying that this whole question is under careful consideration at the moment. It may well be that an approach on this point would be worthwhile for us, but there are cons as well as pros and it is not a thing we could rush into. It is being studied and it is possible that a decision might be taken one way or the other within a couple of months, depending upon the evolution of the situation and depending upon what this study shows. I can assure the Senator and the House that the matter is being carefully examined and that the decision will be taken strictly on the merits for this country of an approach of this kind.
The adverse effects on agricultural policy of the fluctuations of currencies in the Community are a serious problem. Indeed our concern is that we achieve a condition of an economic and monetary union, despite the strain that it will impose on our economy. Our concern that we should eventually secure that derives from our recognition of the constant pressures and risks to which the agricultural policy is prone so long as we do not have complete stability of currencies within the Community. A single price system cannot but face serious difficulties if there are constant fluctuations in currencies as they move further and further apart. The green £1 expedient may be a temporary way of helping to alleviate some of these problems, but the problems are more fundamental. It would merely be a means of alleviating symptoms rather than curing the cause.
Senator Butler gave some impressive figures in regard to the dairy industry and certainly showed conclusively how enormously beneficial membership is to that sector of the agricultural economy. Indeed for farming as a whole the benefits have been great. It is not easy to disentangle the actual benefits to farmers deriving from EEC membership from the fortuitous increase in world prices in commodities at the same time. These increases, by the way, imposed burdens on pig and poultry producers as well as producing benefits for the sale of the final products.
In the two years 1971 to 1973 because of a combination of the world situation and EEC membership and action by the previous Government in anticipation of the EEC membership —on milk prices, for example—the effect was to increase farm incomes by almost 75 per cent to 80 per cent in two years which, even allowing for the rapid rate of inflation in that period, meant an increase in the real purchasing power of Irish farmers of something like 45 per cent. That is something unprecedented. It is unfortunate that the benefits of this have been mitigated by the cycle in prices and by the fact that farmers did not take the excellent advice given to them by the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries. They held on to their stocks they should have sold. Nothing any Government can do, beyond the good advice they can give, can make people good judges of their commercial interests or good businessmen. I am afraid that all too many farmers are prone to be guided in their policy by what the price is now, whereas as an outsider it always seemed to me that if they just did the opposite to that they would nearly always win. If they bought pigs when prices were low and sold them when prices rose, moved in and out of the cycle in a contra-cyclical manner, they would make money. I am almost tempted to go in for pigs myself on that contra-cyclical basis.
We cannot really do much if people ignore the advice given to them, ignore the commercial realities and behave unprofessionally and uncommercially. So long as farmers are not as commercial as they should be, there will be problems. It is certainly unfortunate that these problems hit them at a time when, but for that and if they had exercised better judgment, they would have benefited fully from the enormous gains possible in the EEC, some of which we have seen available to us this year.
Those are most of the economic points that were raised in the debate. Several points were raised in regard to education. Senator Dolan emphasised the need to improve our teaching of languages and made the interesting point, which I must say I should like to see considered, of bringing this right down into the national schools. We have always assumed that the teaching of modern, continental languages cannot begin until secondary school. In Ireland traditionally the primary school education has gone on much later than anywhere else in Europe. This has had the effect, together with the necessity to teach two national languages, of limiting modern language teaching in Ireland more perhaps than anywhere else in Europe. Now we have to recover from the effects of this—the effects which influence us everywhere because of the absence of linguistic competence on the part of people otherwise of the highest degree of competence. We are faced with the choice all the time of taking the best man for the job who cannot speak a word of the language and will not be able to communicate, get on, understand what is happening or deal with the documents, or of selecting somebody who has the language but really does not know much about the subject. That is a dilemma we are faced with more than any other country. It is part of our educational inheritance. I should think that Senator Dolan's suggestion of looking at the primary school position is one worthy of consideration.
On the other point made on education—Senator Martin's point on the teaching of history—I do not want to follow that up as it has not much to do with this debate. The Senator seems to assume that if somebody is worried about a bias in teaching history it is because he wants to get at history and introduce a contrary bias. The fact that some people might want history to be taught in an unbiased manner does not seem to be accepted. That, I think, is what the Ministers to whom he referred were getting at. Certainly I do not think there is anybody in this Government who wants counter-biases introduced, but there are problems where history teaching is biased. Indeed within Europe itself, through the Council of Europe, great work is being done to get rid of these biases which are by no means confined to Ireland. Every country suffers from them.
Coming now to the question of renegotiation and what this means, there is a procedure for renegotiation of the Treaty in that a country can propose that the whole Treaty be amended and, with the unanimous consent of other countries, that process can be got under way. It is in Article 236, I think. That means unanimity even to start the process. That perhaps is not very probable. What is more likely to be feasible— and this is certainly the initial approach and I would hope the ultimate approach of the British Government—is to seek to use the existing Community decision-making mechanisms to modify policies which Britain may see as being unfairly to her disadvantage. That, I think, is the process which is starting in Brussels today at the Council of Agricultural Ministers.
Of course because those aspects of the Community which Britain finds onerous are precisely those which we find beneficial, any renegotiation is liable to be harmful from our point of view. We shall have to balance our conflicting interests; our great interest in keeping Britain within the Community and our interest in trying to avoid taking such an intransigent line that Britain has to leave, against the desirability and vital importance of maintaining the structures and mechanisms of the agricultural policy and the vital importance of securing adequate prices for Irish farm produce.
On the question of mechanisms, I should say that there are certain aspects of the agricultural policy which we regard as vital. If a country —Britain or any other country—is permitted to finance nationally production grants, then of course we are back where we were before, in a position where as a relatively poor country with a huge agricultural sector we cannot afford to finance production grants on the same scale and where we would be at a competitive disadvantage with Germany and Britain. The whole principle of the common agricultural policy is that that cannot happen, and we want to keep it like that. It is also equally of vital interest to us that the intervention mechanism be kept international and that no deviations from this be permitted to particular countries. If Britain or Germany are in a position where they cannot operate the Community intervention mechanism but that they can have their own levels, then the whole purpose of the intervention mechanism as a floor would disappear if in those two key consumer countries it did not operate.
These are vital interests. There is also the question of price levels, but these are the two vital interests, or two of a number of vital interests. What we are concerned with above all is maintaining the integrity of the common agricultural policy and never getting back to the position of exploitation in which we found ourselves before. I shall not say more than that now. The Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries is battling away at this moment in Brussels. Good luck to him. We would all wish that he will be able to achieve the objectives we want to secure without obviously taking a line that is going to make it difficult or, in view of the British Government, impossible for them to remain in the Community. We want Britain to remain a member. It would certainly pose great problems for us if she left.
I want to come now to the question of direct elections. This was raised by a number of Senators. The interest developing in this is heartening. I find it very heartening indeed. Senator Lenihan pressed the issue and Senator Alexis FitzGerald raised it as well. Senator McCartin, Senator Russell, Senator E. Ryan and Senator Quinlan raised different points. The burden and strain imposed by the dual mandate was emphasised. I am quite clear that our Deputies in the European Parliament are having an impossible, intolerable time. I do not know that we can expect them to take it on a second time unless the burden is in some way eased.
How could that be done? We have to understand the mechanism here. When the Treaty was signed provision was made for agreement to move to direct elections if unanimous agreement were achieved on this point. That unanimity has not been available ever since the matter first came up in 1961. Therefore, we can only carry on as we are for the time being. "But," someone may say "can we not have direct elections at home?" We could but, unfortunately, the present provisions which can only be changed by unanimity require that anybody who goes to the European Parliament must be a Member of the national parliament. The dual mandate problem could only be overcome with unanimous agreement on the Europewide system of direct elections. We could overcome the lack of direct mandate by having a direct election but the only people who could stand would be existing Members of the Oireachtas. It would not resolve the dual mandate problem. Whether a step of that kind should be proposed is another matter. It was discussed some years ago between parliamentarians at a meeting I attended in London and perhaps we should consider it. The dual mandate problem can only be overcome if there is unanimous agreement on direct elections.
Senator Lenihan seemed to visualise, if I understood him correctly—I am not quite clear on this—the question of a single electoral system throughout the Community and also the possibility of additional members being elected on a population basis where at present they are elected on the basis which overweights our representation by 5 to 1. I would not be in favour of any dilution of the present system of over-representation of small countries until and unless we move to a bicameral system in which the interests of the nine member states are protected by equal representation in the Upper House. Until and unless that situation is arrived at we must retain the present system which protects the interests of the smaller countries. On the question of a single electoral system, being unconvinced that we can easily persuade the others of the merits of our system and being persuaded of the demerits of theirs, I am prepared to keep our own for as long as we can. I do not see why we should not, in the early stages of direct elections, each use our own electoral system nationally to elect a proportion or number of Deputies similar to what there are now in the European Parliament, moving at some later point to a single electoral system on a population basis; when there is an Upper House within which each country in it would be equally represented on the federal principle that exists in countries like the United States.
I said that.
There was a doubt in my mind as to the Senator's intention. I am glad to see he agrees with me on that.
On the question of a Minister without portfolio leading the team there— Senator Quinlan suggested this—there is no precedent for that. It is not, in fact, the practice for Ministers to appear at the European Parliament leading delegations. They appear there to answer for their sins as members of the Council of Ministers. It is a Parliament of non-governmental people who stand at times against the Governments of member states. I do not think that suggestion is one that we could or should pursue.
It is not forbidden expressly.
It may not be but it might be an undesirable practice, one which would be seen as undesirable from a democratic point of view.
Senator Whyte said we should identify ourselves with the smaller states and work closely with them. We do this in those matters in which we have common interests, including anything to do with the democratisation of the institutions. We find ourselves very much of one mind with countries like Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg and have close contacts with them.
Senator Markey was concerned with the survival of the Community, as we all are, and his comments were well taken at this time. It must be our main concern to secure that it does survive and becomes more united and more effective than it is today.
Senator Russell quoted from the speech by President Ortoli. He made it clear by those quotations how grave the situation is and what problems are posed by the present situation. I accept that.
Senator Lenihan expressed the opinion that the approach by President Nixon was unwise. Senator O'Brien also made reference to the problems arising between Europe and the United States and to Germany's fear of losing the American nuclear military protection and the strains that imposes on Europe at present. There are grave problems here and this is not, perhaps, the moment to debate them because there is a separate and broader issue from the couple concerned in this report. Much that has gone wrong has gone wrong because of misunderstandings. There are great difficulties in Americans and Europeans understanding each other and curious misunderstandings have arisen throughout this affair and we will have to try, at least, to know what each other is talking about, something which we have not hitherto been very good at.
There are more fundamental difficulties, stresses and strains of a power struggle that is endemic in the world that exists today with these power blocs but it is certainly important, as I indicated in opening this debate, that Europe and the United States should understand each other and should have friendship in equality. It has to involve equality. Europe is understandably sensitive to any danger of an unequal relationship. Western Europe is recognising that it is protected by the American nuclear umbrella by the existence of American forces in Europe. That kind of protection can create complexes in the minds of those protected and can create certain assumptions of rights in the minds of those doing the protecting, though doing it in their own interests as well as yours. Psychological attitudes can build up here which cause problems. These have burst out into the open recently. It may transpire that that is a good thing because, having burst out into the open, they can now be discussed more easily. They are more easily recognised and hopefully a better relationship will emerge. Much needs to be done to achieve that. It will be our interest and concern to contribute to that in any way we can.
On the broader issue of our whole relationship with Europe, it was very interesting and encouraging to hear so many Senators refer to the basic commitment to Europe, to the overemphasis on the economic side, to the fact that it is a European ideal towards which we are striving. Senators were critical of too much emphasis on the economic side and suggested that there was too much emphasis on this side in the referendum campaign. Senator McCartin said I was primarily to blame for that. I do not resent that. It is a fair accusation. In the referendum campaign we were too inhibited. I felt that towards the end of the campaign but I never managed to re-orientate myself sufficiently and I am sure others were in the same position. We did not put enough emphasis on what Europe is all about, on the European ideal and on the fact that we had an interest in trying to build a united Europe in its own right and not just to get better prices for dairy farmers.
You have to be simplistic in an election campaign.
Maybe we were simplistic. We have suffered from it since. It is right that this House should be critical of this. All elections lead to simplisticism. It is never confined to one side. We need to redress the balance now and recognising the great economic benefits we have secured and can secure, I found the debate heartening. It reinforced my own convictions as to the course we should be pursuing. It has given me new heart to pursue that course at a time when, indeed, much that is happening is disheartening. The fact that this is the way that this House has responded to this discouraging situation is certainly encouraging for all of us who are involved in this whole affair.
The comments made by Senators indicated how strongly this is felt. Senator Dolan spoke of our need for an extra window in the world. Senator Quinlan spoke of the need to rediscover the European ideal. Senator Markey spoke of the hope of political union which we should continue to pursue. Other Senators spoke of a sense of involvement with Europe and how much this is in the minds of people now and how much it is part of our thinking. Senator FitzGerald spoke of the need for a conscious dedication to this ideal. All these reflections on the situation represent a positive response to the discouragement of the difficulties and problems and even failures in the past year. Although we have gained very substantially economically from membership, it is encouraging that the people are looking at the broader aspects of membership. This is the first debate in which this has come through so loud and clear. I tried to cover most of the points made. I am sure I have missed some. One point I have missed, a very important point and one on which I must conclude is the question of the servicing of the committee of the Oireachtas and, indeed, though this featured rather less in the debate, the servicing of the members of the European Parliament.
I think it was Senator Lenihan who said we made a mistake in lumping these two together. I plead guilty for that. In retrospect, I think it was a mistake. I had thought that the kind of common overhead of expertise in the secretariat of the committee could usefully serve the European Parliamentarians also. As we have not yet got an adequate secretariat for the committee the European Parliament members have suffered throughout this year. Whereas if we tackled them separately, it might have been possible to deal with their rather different problem more quickly. I hope it will be dealt with because they cannot be expected to carry on their job if we do not give them the assistance they need. I am very conscious of this. I hope that the loss of time involved in tackling these two problems together can be overcome.
Now, why did we not make faster progress in servicing the committee? I think the blame is shared a little here. I have not got all my facts, figures and dates in front of me but I think the committee were a little slow in making up their minds as to what they wanted. They then sought assistance on such a scale, so far beyond what seemed likely to be necessary, if I may make that comment, that the Minister for Finance, I think correctly, thought it necessary to have a study of what their real needs were. Perhaps that study took a little time to launch and the cumulative affect of these errors on all our sides has been that this problem has not yet been resolved. The Minister now has received the report of the study group and I am sure will want to act on it speedily in the weeks ahead so as to provide the committee with the assistance they need and which, so far they have been, unfortunately, deprived of. I hope that at the same time that that is done similar action will be taken to look after the needs of the European Parliamentarians which in some ways are greater. The strain on them of having to participate in debates while inadequately briefed, and the constant strain of serving two Parliaments simultaneously and looking after their constituents, means that it is even worse for them to be inadequately serviced than it is for the committee. I hope these problems can be solved in the very near future.
Question put and agreed to.