Motions Nos. 3 and 4 may be taken together by agreement of the House.
Delegates to the Assembly of the European Communities: Motion
I move:
That Seanad Éireann, in accordance with established precedents since the entry of Ireland into the European Communities, approves the nominations of five members of the party or parties comprising the Government and five members of the party or parties comprising the opposition, to be the delegates to the Assembly of the European Communities, pending the holding of direct elections to that body.
To some extent the motion in the names of Senator Harte and myself is a formality. In fact, we know the names and the party affiliations of the people chosen who are enumerated in No. 4 on the Order Paper. I will be brief. There are a small number of points that are worth making again and indeed are worth making very widely.
When you have ten places, which is what is currently within the keeping, within the nomination, within the powers to nominate of the Oireachtas, every 10 per cent of the vote ought to correspond to one seat in a proportional representation situation which we pretend we admire and wish to operate. Those things do not work neatly in practice because you cannot have slices of persons, you have a whole person. Therefore, you have to make adjustments because the vote does not ever break down into units of 10 per cent, it breaks down into much more ragged fractions than that. Of course a little violence has to be due to be able to choose whole individuals and not portions of them, and to give some sort of reflection of the breakdown of votes within a country. The fact that we cannot get an exact match between votes on the one hand and persons chosen on the other hand need surprise nobody.
Another point worth making is that people being chosen are delegates to the Assembly of the European Community. Since 1st January, 1973—I recall this because I was among the first delegation sent from Ireland to that Assembly after we joined the Community on 1st January, 1973—we have had a representation and we have had experience of the working of the Irish representation in that Assembly. We know that it is an Assembly with power to debate but with very little power beyond that. If we pay lip service to democracy we believe that the various plans and attitudes in our nation ought to be reflected in that Assembly and ought to be reflected roughly pro rata with the breakdown of opinion within the country.
We know furthermore in equity and in decency, that since you cannot have an exact match between the percentage of votes and the people because people, as I say, come in whole numbers and not in fractions, that it is normal, decent, non-shabby practice at the lower end to average up and at the upper end to average down. What is so sad and tawdry about this is that a party with very little more than half the votes should find themselves using mechanisms of power to defeat equity and fair play and to award themselves 60 per cent, six out of ten, when any normal basis of equity and generosity would suggest that they should have five out of ten. Getting from 50.5 per cent to 60 per cent, which is the trick that has been turned, of course involves two steps; first, the number of Deputies in the Dáil is not linear with the vote of the Fianna Fáil Party, it is more pro rata. That increase is given a further stepwise increase from the middle 50s of percentage of Dáil seats up to 60 per cent in the European Parliament.
The Community is extremely important for all our futures. No one would disagree about that. It is important that the different strands of Irish political opinion be fairly represented in the Community. The position of the Labour Party on this is worth recalling because we opposed full membership. The people expressed their will in a referendum and voted overwhelmingly for full membership. As democrats we accepted that decision and we have been—both as members of the European Parliament of which I had the honour to be in the first delegation and indeed in my own case as a member of the Council of Ministers the first Irishman to chair the Council of Ministers of the European Community which, by accident, I was, and in various other roles in the Community— striving loyally to minimise the dangers that we forecast and to maximise the benefits which we recognised to exist in the Community.
We accept the democratic decision of the people of May, 1972, but we represent a valid strand in public opinion which is now larger, if heads were to be counted, than it was at the time of the 1972 referendum. At that time just over 17 per cent of the people voted for our position. The experience of the passing years has shown that many of the predictions that we made have been validated and the poohpoohing of difficulties that was such a conspicuous feature of that campaign has been invalidated.
This is the use of a statistical trick to see that there is only a 10 per cent, a one-tenth, representation for that point of view which is a valid strand of Irish political life. That seems to me shabby and it seems to me sad and it seems to me also in terms—and I am looking now at the terms of the amendment—to be innumerate rather than illiterate because the terms of the amendment says "in proportion to the relevant representation in the Oireachtas". Six out of ten, of course, is not in proportion to the relevant representation in the Oireachtas. You have to go up from an already majority representation to 60 per cent or you have to go down to 50 per cent because you cannot send half a person. Equity and generosity would suggest that Fianna Fáil ought to go down to half. They know that there is no danger of their embarrassment as a Government in the European Parliament. They know that Irish Deputies and Senators going to the Assembly, in the almost five years since that started, have in general behaved in a way that waged the issues at a high level—this applies just as much when the Opposition were in power as when Fianna Fáil were in power—not playing domestic politics on the European scene, not embarrassing each other at home and generally participating usefully and trying to raise the level of debate, trying to raise the level of understanding.
This seems to me a pity, it seems to me shabby, it seems to be tawdry, it seems to me hostile to the idea of proportional representation and it seems to me—I was going to say unworthy but I will not—simply a pity and tawdry.
I should like to support this motion. I should like to do so by examining the particular nature of the European Parliament and the particular nature of Irish representation in the European Parliament. As Senator Keating said, we are not talking here in a narrow sense about the representation of the Labour Party in the European Parliament, we are talking about the composition of the Irish delegation to a very different sort of parliament from our parliament. This really is the essence of not only the unfairness in the sense in which Senator Keating was putting it forward but the stupidity of the decision that was taken to grab an extra seat for the Fianna Fáil component of the national delegation to the European Parliament. It was stupid and it was not in the best interests of this country if one examines the type of parliament that the European Parliament is, the type of structure is has and the importance for the interests of this country in the eight months, or whatever it will be before direct elections, that we maximise the possibilities of that representation. We are talking about the national representation which will be composed of ten members from either the Dáil or the Seanad who will have the task of representing Irish interests in the European Parliament.
It has been a feature of Irish representation which has been commented upon by Members of the European Parliament on all sides that very often they are representing Irish interests in the broader sense against the possibility of either a particular proposal being viewed and passed to the European level which does not take into account the particular difficulties and needs of Ireland and that party politics are forgotten in that context in many instances. There is an agreement by the Irish representatives there, whatever their political affiliation, that the measure must be opposed or amendments must be put in because it would cause particular difficulties or hardship when translated into the Irish context. I know from meetings of the Joint Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities that delegates to the European Parliament who participated in sessions of the joint committee made the point over and over again that the first priority is to represent Irish interests in this much larger European grouping called the European Parliament.
How do we have our interests represented at the European Parliament? We have them represented in a way which is very different from the structure and type of debate which takes place in either House of the Oireachtas. The European Parliament works very much through a system of committees. There are 12 specialised committees of the European Parliament. I will set them out giving the number of members. The 12 committees are: the Political Affairs Committee which has 35 members: the Legal Affairs Committee has 35 members; the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee has 35 members; the Budget Committee has 35 members; the Social Affairs Employment and Education Committee has 35 members; the Agricultural Committee has 35 members; the Regional Policy, Regional Planning and Transport Committee has 35 members; the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection Committee has 35 members; the Energy and Research Committee has 35 members; the External Economic Relations Committee has 35 members; the Development Co-operation Committee has 35 members and the Rules of Procedure and Petitions Committee has 18 members. All but one have 35 members.
The membership of these committees retains a very delicate balance between the political groupings in the European Parliament. At present there are various political groups of which the Socialist group are the largest. There is the Socialist group, the Christian Democrat group, who are the next largest, the Liberal and Democratic group, the European Conservatives, European Progressive Democrats, who each have 17 members and the Communist and Allies. Apart from that, there are a small number of independent members of the European Parliament. The balance which is retained in the specialised committees means that the Socialist group have the largest number averaging about nine or ten members of the specialised committees. That is of very real significance for Ireland because it is very important for us as a country that we have adequate representation in these specialised committees when they are discussing draft regulations and draft directives which affect us.
When we send ten delegates from Ireland to the European Parliament, the members of the European Parliament have to make a decision about which committees they want to serve on and they also have to lobby and work fairly hard to try to get on to those committees. Understandably, they have to concentrate on the committees which will have most significance for this country—agriculture and regional policy, that type of committee work. At the same time it is possible that an important matter might come up for discussion in one of the other committees where there was no Irish representative of any of the political groupings, or where there was possibly one other Irish representative who would be a member of this committee of 35 but because the Socialist group have a membership of about nine or ten on these various committees there may very well be a vacancy for another member of the Socialist group to attend that particular committee. This has happened a number of times in areas where there was a matter of great sensitivity to Ireland being discussed and where it was possible for one or two members of the Labour Party who are members of the Socialist group to be present and to represent interests in that committee.
The European Progressive Democrats group which Fianna Fáil belong to is the fifth largest group in the European Parliament. It would have much less representation, and would share that representation with the French representatives of the Gaullist Party and also with the Danish representatives. The likelihood of there being a vacancy in the European Progressive Democrat component of the specialised committee is much less. That is one specific reason why it is very important when we are considering the Irish representation to the European Parliament that we think of it in terms of the structure of the European Parliament, of trying to maximise the possibility of Irish representation on the various committees, the need to have participation by delegates from this Parliament when a draft regulation or draft directive is being discussed and is going to be reported on to the plenary session. It is the largest group which will contribute first to the plenary session and then the other groups in accordance with their weight and number.
The Socialist group are a most significant group in the European Parliament. They have the largest membership on the committees and they have a very significant role to play also in the plenary sessions. If we confine the Irish representation on the Socialist group to one person we put an enormous burden on that one delegate who participates in that group. We put the burden on one person of trying to make an impact on the largest political grouping in the European Parliament. That itself is a matter of very real Irish interest because the Socialist group are represented in the Governments of six of the member states of the European Community. They have at least three Prime Ministers and they have an immense weight as a grouping. The political groups meet in between sessions of the European Parliament or committee sessions in Brussels in order to decide on the policy of the group. This group is the largest and most significant group in the European Parliament, meeting before a committee session or a plenary session of the Parliament to decide on the policy of that group and we are going to have one representative in a total of 65 members if that one representative is not ill or otherwise unable to be present. We are effectively taking a decision to cut by 50 per cent the representation which Ireland would have in this very significant political grouping.
I think there are two possible approaches to the consideration of the representation. The first is the approach which was argued by Senator Keating that Fianna Fáil are grabbing 60 per cent of the representation in the European Parliament without having that percentage of the endorsement by the electorate. That is the kind of numbers' game one can argue round and round in a rather sterile way. If you take that argument in the context of a national delegation representing Irish interests in a much larger European grouping of a particular kind, there are Irish disadvantages in structuring it as we appear to be about to do, unless this motion is carried.
The Fianna Fáil group of components of the national delegation to the European Parliament are members of the European Progressive Democrat group. That is a rather narrow group because it really only involves two countries, France and Ireland, with one Danish member.
Two Danish members.
Sorry, two Danish members. I accept the correction of one of the members of the European Parliament, Senator Yeats. Nevertheless, it is largely a Franco-Irish grouping. The socialist group on the other hand have strong political links with each of the member states and have a very substantial impact both as a political group in the specialised committees and on the floor of the House.
For that combination of reasons, both internal Irish political reasons and equally the impact of our delegation on the European Parliament, we would urge Members of this House to accept the motion and to understand that we are talking about the composition of a national delegation to a body where we are actually minimising the possibility of real use of the structure, the committee system in the Parliament to the best interests of this country. If we are sending a national delegation surely the primary consideration should be how do we best represent our interests? The situation will change very substantially when we move to direct elections, whether that be in next May or June, as is hoped, in the autumn, or even May or June of the following year. Whenever the date may be, at that stage there is a completely different situation because one is talking about direct representation. The election will be on the basis of regional constituencies and the people will have a direct opportunity of deciding who they want to represent them. Very different criteria will apply at that stage.
You have a constituency, you have people standing on the basis of a programme of policies at the European level, and people are elected on that basis. If at that stage, 14 of the 15 people elected happen to be from one political party, I do not think there could be any complaint. It would illustrate that the people wanted to be represented in the European Parliament by that number of members of that political party. At that stage, the result of having direct elections will mean that there will be a debate on the issues at European level and that there will be a much greater comprehension than there is at the moment about the structure of the European Parliament, of the political groupings in the Parliament and of the way in which the specialised committees work.
It could not possibly be argued in a realistic way that a decision was taken by the people in the general election that they somehow wanted to cut by 50 per cent the representation in the largest political grouping in the European Parliament and that they wanted to add to the representation in the European Progressive Democrats group. It is shortsighted and not in the best interest of the country and it is very much dictated by short-term party political advantage if Fianna Fáil persist in an attempt to change the composition of the Irish delegation to the European Parliament. Therefore, I support this motion and hope it will be accepted by the House.
I move amendment No. 1:
To delete all words after "Seanad Éireann" and to substitute the following:
"in proportion to the relevant representation in the Oireachtas, approves the nomination of six members of Fianna Fáil and four members of parties comprising the opposition to be delegates to the Assembly of the European Communities, pending the holding of direct elections to that body.
Much of what has been said by Senator Keating and Senator Robinson is misconceived. They do not appear to appreciate what is involved in the selection of the delegation to the European Parliament. All of us agree on one thing. If one takes the statistical position of the members of parties in both Houses, Fianna Fáil are entitled to six seats and the rest have four. This applies to all the nine countries when they are selecting their delegations. As Senator Keating said, you cannot split people. What they all have to do, and what we have to do, is to try to work it out to the nearest human, allowing for the way party figures are worked out. Immediately after our general election it was assumed at the European Parliament that this would involve an extra seat for Fianna Fáil and one of the other parties. This is the way things are done in all nine countries as a matter of course.
We can accept that statistically speaking the upshot of the election must be that Fianna Fáil would take six seats. One can take that the line which essentially is the line taken by Senator Robinson and Senator Keating, that is, it does not really matter whether we send Fianna Fáil people, Labour people or Fine Gael people to the Parliament, let us all, therefore, row in together and agree to carry on as before without any change because it makes no difference. One must make the point that it does make a difference. In Fianna Fáil's view, it is in the national interest that there should be more Fianna Fáil people at the Parliament and it is not in the national interest that there should be more Labour people there. We are entitled to press that view. We have certain policies to carry out. They have certain policies that they have endeavoured to carry out. I do not believe that the line taken on a number of occasions by the Labour members in the European Parliament has been in the national interest. Senator Keating said—and I think it is pretty near an exact quotation—"beyond debating in Parliament there is very little power beyond that", the implication being that it does not really matter who goes because it is really only a matter of talking. There he is wrong.
The quotation is right but that is not the implication.
If that is not the implication, I am not sure what it is. Even with regard to the quotation. I do not accept that. After a considerable number of years in Seanad Éireann—about 19—and five years in the European Parliament, I am absolutely satisfied that the ordinary member of the European Parliament has a far better chance of getting through substantial amendments to legislation than he would either in this House or in Dáil Éireann.
It is also a fact, as a plain constitutional statement of the position, that on budgetary matters, for example, the European Parliament have considerably more power than either House of the Oireachtas. They have the power which neither Dáil Éireann nor any other national parliament in the EEC has of adding to budget expenditure. They can reject the entire budget and in many respects they have very considerable budgetary powers. Therefore it is important whom we send. It has been made clear by Senator Keating and Senator Robinson that what to them is important is the concept of sending two members to the Socialist group rather than one. The problem with that is that the policies, the traditions, the aims of the Socialist group as represented in the European Parliament are not necessarily those which we would wish them to carry out from an Irish point of view. The Socialist group, for example, traditionally are essentially a consumers' party rather than a farmers' party. They are very much opposed to the CAP. They have policies in many fields which are not in our best interests. The Irish members—that is the Labour Party members—of the Socialist group have inevitably, I am not blaming them, it is not their fault, been curbed on many occasions in their activities and in their votes in the European Parliament because of their membership of a group who hold certain views which are not often in accordance with Irish interests.
At least they were in favour of direct elections, unlike another group.
The British Labour Party?
With regard to that, I can make an interesting point. The Socialist group are a large group, as we have been told. Even when there were two Irish Labour members they were only a very small part of a very large group. Where the group differed from them on one or two occasions they decided to go their own way. On many other occasions they decided they had to go along with what the group said. With regard to the European Progressive Democrat group, to which Fianna Fáil belong in the majority of cases there has been complete agreement, particularly on agricultural matters.
The "Fianna Gaulle" Party.
They have backed us completely on regional policy and matters of this kind. Even on such matters as direct elections, or more recently on fishing, when we are unable to agree on a joint policy, I can say categorically after four and a half years' experience with that group, that there has never been one occasion when our freedom of action was hampered in any way. We voted and spoke on many occasions in favour of direct elections. On all matters of that kind we have been completely uninhibited. We have been allowed by the group, where there could not be complete agreement, to go our own way and to propound our own policies. We have never had that type of problem.
It is worthwhile saying something about a very recent day at the European Parliament when the voting took place at the end of October on various aspects of the annual EEC budget. This is a matter on which the European Parliament have considerable powers. There were five particular votes in which there was not a united Irish delegation. The first of these related to the matter of cross-Border co-operation. It seemed to Fianna Fáil that, with conditions as they are at the moment in the North, cross-Border co-operation and studies of the type being carried out by the EEC on a minor scale so far, are exceedingly valuable. Therefore, on behalf of my group, and with their full backing. I moved, at the Budget Committee, an amendment to add considerably to the sum provided for this in the annual budget and persuaded that committee to accept it. It came before the Parliament and our group voted in favour of it. Our only Labour member of the Socialist group present abstained. I am not blaming him but I can see he had a problem in his group, but that is his affair. Nonetheless, I would have thought that from the point of view of our national interests it would have been desirable that he would have supported it.
I moved another amendment. This arose out of a petition sent to the European Parliament a month or so ago by 26 mayors and chairmen of county councils throughout Northern Ireland. Heaven knows there is very little that all parties are prepared to agree on in Northern Ireland today, but this was a matter on which all sides felt deeply. They wanted to have an office of the European Economic Community in Belfast. Again I moved an amendment on behalf of my group and got the Budget Committee to put a sum of money in the budget for the opening of a Commission office in Belfast.
At the vote in plenary session we naturally voted in favour. The Irish Labour member of the Socialist group with his group voted against. Two minutes later with his group he voted in favour of Commission offices being opened this year in Madrid and Lisbon, but not in favour of Belfast. It is a rather curious sense of Irish priorities.
We also had an amendment down to the budget to eliminate the co-responsibility levy which has caused a great deal of ill-feeling among Irish farmers. Again, we voted in favour of our amendment. Again the Irish Labour member of the Socialist group voted against the amendment in favour of a co-responsibility levy. It is his affair how he manages inside his group. He may have been personally in favour of it but nonetheless that was not in accordance with Irish interests. We had another amendment on behalf of our group to increase considerably the sum to be put in the budget for the regional fund. This is a matter of fundamental interest to us. We voted in favour. The Irish Labour member voted against.
The last item on that day was an extremely dangerous amendment by Mr. Spinelli who was formerly a member of the European Commission. He resigned to stand as a Communist candidate in the last Italian elections. He was elected and is now a member of the European Parliament. He put down an amendment to the budget to provide for a limit on the expenditure on FEOGA for the coming year. It was done in a dangerous way because it sought, by a sidewind, to impose an authority on the European Parliament over the Council which in fact they do not possess. It was an extremely dangerous amendment which has since been rejected by the Council. Even though the Council rejected it, it was extremely dangerous that it should have been passed because it had the authority of the European Parliament behind it.
This amendment which was totally opposed to everything we would wish to see happen in Ireland, was approved by 54 votes to 51. We had three members present, because two of our members are now members of the Government and could not be there, and we voted against this amendment. The Irish member of the Socialist group of the European Parliament voted in favour. If we had had our five members, it would still have been passed by one vote. If we had six, we could have blocked it. The question of voting is not as inconsequential and unimportant as one might feel.
It is not in order to blame anyone that I mention these matters because everyone has to exercise his own political judgment and make his way in his own political group. My point is that we are essentially choosing a political delegation to carry out certain political policies, to take part in political groups at the European Parliament. We, in Fianna Fáil, are entitled to say that in our view our policies, as exercised over the past five years, have been more beneficial, and will continue to be more beneficial to the Irish interests than the policies of those who form parts of large, amorphous, multinational groups whose policies are not necessarily similar to those we would wish to carry out.
I am supporting the concept of taking six members of this delegation because in the European Progressive Democrats group we will be able to do more for Ireland with greater freedom than would an extra Labour member of the Socialist group. In other words, this is not just a talking shop we are sending people to, to be happy brothers abroad. We are sending politicians to do a political job. I am certain, from my experience in the European Parliament, that we in our group are in a position to do a better job for Ireland than the others.
Listening to Senator Yeats outline the numerous occasions in which the Irish Labour Party sold this country down the river in Brussels has made me wonder.
The Senator has even got the wrong place, never mind not having the facts.
In the European Parliament. Senator Robinson was not present to hear the facts. If she had been, I would be very interested to know what her comments would be on what Senator Yeats said. Listening to Senator Yeats outline these details made me wonder if it is wise for us to give the Labour Party any representation at all in the European Parliament. I would like to pose a question to this House.
Hardly his argument.
If the National Coalition Government had 84 Deputies elected last June, would they have given Fianna Fáil five seats in the European Parliament? Would they have given Fianna Fáil even four seats in the European Parliament? I very much doubt it. I could visualise the passionate speeches of members of the Labour Party pointing out that the people had given them a mandate to take a representation of seven seats in Europe. One might say there is no precedent and we do not know what would happen——
——but I believe there is a type of precedent. I was elected to this House in 1961 and Fianna Fáil had an overall majority. The Cathaoirleach elected was from Fianna Fáil, but the filling of the Leas-Chathaoirleach's position was left to the Opposition, as it was right down to 1973 and as it was only a few weeks ago. In 1973 that precedent was changed. When the National Coalition Government were elected they came into this House and we agreed to the election of Cathaoirleach and they grabbed the position of Leas-Chathaoirleach as well. Perhaps we could describe their action then as Senator Keating has just described ours.
The Labour Party grabbed that position and even Senator Robinson, who was then an Independent Member of this House, protested very strongly. She considered it unfair. She forecast that in future elections Fianna Fáil would have a monopoly of both positions. Having witnessed that situation in 1973 I feel that if the National Coalition Government had received the same mandate from the people last June as Fianna Fáil did not alone would they seek six seats in the European Parliament but they would seek seven and would apologise to nobody. This Government are being more than generous in leaving four seats to the Opposition, considering the huge mandate that we received from the people only a few short months ago.
I would like to join in condemning this motion. It is high time we placed greater emphasis on Europe and on the European Parliament. It is in no sense any longer a debating society but an area where crucial decisions and crucial influences can be brought to play. It is high time we took full cognisance of this and reflected in our representation in Europe the true representation of our parties in this Parliament.
I do not think it is any of our business to increase, as Senator Robinson would seem to wish us to do, Socialist representation in Europe. We have to have the people there who represent the people elected to this Parliament. Many key issues will be coming up even in the immediate future, on agricultural structures policy, and on regional policy and many of these very important policies will influence our lives economically, sociallly and culturally. It is absolutely essential that we be fully politically represented in Europe and that we stop this notion that it is some form of debating society. It is a very serious businesss. We no longer can afford to do other than take it seriously.
First, it is important to indicate what representation in the European Parliament is not about. It is not about ensuring that we have a presence in the groupings or in the maximum number of groupings in the European Parliament. It is not about ensuring that our view would be expressed in these groupings. It is fairly evident that there are some major groupings in which Ireland does not have any representation—the Liberal, Conservative and Communist groupings. According to the Labour motion, if we are to maximise our effective strength in the European Parliament, we should seek to find representations, if possible, in the various groupings.
Secondly, another point needs to be stressed. Obviously this is a matter for each national parliament. It is not covered in the Treaty and the nomination of members, pending direct elections to the European Parliament, is a matter for each national parliament. To that extent, Senator E. Ryan's amendment, which represents the Government's position, is entirely consistent with what has been done and with what is now being done in every other country. We are not setting ourselves up in judgment of what is or is not a valid strand of Irish political viewpoint, as Senator Keating put it. That is not part of our function and that is not what is involved in this issue. We are being consistent with what is being done in every other country. The understanding in representation to the European Parliament is, that the members who will represent our Parliament in that Assembly will be as far as possible in proportion to the strength of the parties in both the Dáil and Seanad.
This representation means in some countries, in Denmark for instance, that parties such as the Radicals who have six seats, the Communists who have seven, the Left Socialists who have five and the Single Tax Party who have six, have no representation in the European Assembly. In some instances, such as in the case of France, there seems to be all-party agreement that the Communists would not be represented in the European Parliament. Subject to the qualification about France, generally and con-consistently, the representation in the European Assembly is as far as possible in line with the representation of the parties in their national parliaments.
That seems to be a very reasonable and proper proposition, particularly at a time when we are coming to direct elections to the European Parliament, when we will want to give effective expression to the will of the Irish people, as Senator Robinson indicated, as to what type of representation they want in the European Parliament. The target date is still May-June, 1978. To ignore the very definite opinion of the people as expressed in the recent general election, within one year of that target date, would be to move away from democratic representation in the Parliament and to reject it. The people have given a clear indication of what they want in relation to the national parliament, but representation to the European Parliament was not an issue one way or the other nor was whether the Labour Party should have one or two seats at issue. The people spoke only in relation to the composition of the national parliament and the formation of Government arising from that. To the extent that the other follows immediately from it, that they indirectly convey their views, then in all matters of natural interest the Government have an obligation to take account of that mandate particularly coming into the period of direct elections. In so far as we are doing so— I would like to stress this—not only do we not presume to make statements on bodies who have not a valid strand of Irish political thinking—Senator Keating presumes we seem to be doing this—but there are other valid strands which we might not find particularly attractive such as Deputy Noel Browne's party and some others such as the Irish Communist Party. It is not for us to comment as to whether or not they are valid strands and we are not doing that. They are not represented in the European Parliament. Neither do we speak about whether or not the university Senators or other Independents in this House are valid strands of Irish political opinion. We are simply responding, as in every other country, to the reality of political representation. That reality is that most of the Opposition parties represent about 40 per cent of the share of the seats in both Houses. I cannot see, on that basis, how if they represent about 40 per cent of the share of seats they can object to getting exactly that representation in the European Parliament or do they claim that they embrace the interests of, for example, Deputy Blaney, Deputy Browne or the university Senators here?
Does the Minister represent them?
No, I am thinking first of all in terms of the Opposition percentage.
The Minister can have the former if he likes.
I take it that those facts are accepted.
Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If we do not claim you should not claim.
The Fianna Fáil Party happen to have, in relation to the proportionate strength in both Houses, over 55 per cent, not taking account of the Independents either here or in the Dáil. On the precedents already adopted in this country, on the precedents and principles employed in every other country, with the exception of the Communists in France, at least with over 55 per cent it seems reasonable that we can justifiably claim a 60 per cent representation as against 50 per cent which the Opposition are claiming for a 40 per cent representation in both Houses. That does not seem to make sense and if it did it would be acting in a manner entirely inconsistent with what is being done in any other parliament in Europe. If somebody can indicate to me positions being taken up, apart from the exclusion of the communists in France, then the matter can be reconsidered.
I can understand that inevitably practical problems can be posed for a particular party or parties who had five and who now, as a result of the election, it is proposed should have four. I can understand that one or other of these parties might feel less than enthusiastic about the outcome in so far as it would mean a cutback in their representation. It is not the Fianna Fáil Party here or in the Dáil who have decided that, it is the Irish people. To the extent that we are moving towards the day, I hope fairly quickly, when we will have direct representation with the mandate of the Irish people in the European Parliament, it behoves us to take account of this, the latest expression of the Irish people in advance of the European elections.
Is there in fact a valid delegation from Ireland to the European Parliament at the moment or has the mandate of the former members lapsed after six months?
As far as I know there will soon be a valid delegation from Ireland to the European Parliament.
That was not the question. We have a motion to appoint a delegation which is further down on the Order Paper today. At the moment is there a valid delegation to the European Parliament?
I think perhaps there may not be an existing delegation deriving from the last Oireachtas.
Is that not very negligent when the Minister is expressing such concern for a valid representation?
Some of the Members have a continuing mandate as a result of their re-election. It is a matter of Fine Gael replacement. It is a different matter and we can discuss that when that motion comes up for discussion. We had some discussions on this in the other House as well. I do not accept the implication that any fault in this lies on the Government of the day because when it comes to discussing that I can quite clearly indicate the reasons for some of this delay. It does not by any means lie with the Government of the moment. That is obviously not related to the point I am making or to any point which has been made already.
In the Dáil the Labour Party presented their case in accordance with precedent. We dealt with that case on the basis of precedent. The Labour Party acknowledged in the Dáil that either on the basis of precedent here or elsewhere what is now being proposed is entirely in accordance with that precedent and what they were proposing, on the other hand, was quite clearly opposed to the precedents established. I have not heard precedents being quoted here. Perhaps it may be for that reason.
I want to make it quite clear that this is not a judgment on the performance of anybody, although what Senator Yeats said was rather enlightening. I have referred in passing to this in the Dáil and one of the Labour Party Deputies seemed to take issue with it. Nonetheless the record is very clear and one that gives some concern as to the lack of effective voice which perhaps some of our parties may have in some of the major groups in the European Parliament. Senator Yeats spoke about being unable to influence these grouping to supporting positions which I would have thought would be consistent with Irish interests, in so far as we are talking about cross-Border projects, representatives of the Community in a Belfast office, but consistent with the Community interest and the Community stated aims, namely peace in Europe, elimination of regional imbalances and economic development in areas where there has not been development. I would have thought that on any terms there could be only one response there but apparently that was not the case. The precedents are all in favour of what the Government are doing by way of support and for that reason I hope the consequence of this debate here and in the Dáil will not be that there will be a division in the Irish representation in the European Parliament but that it can be seen simply to be a response to the latest expressed view of the Irish people.
Finally, I do not wish to comment on Senator Keating's implications that this is sad or tawdry, or whatever word would seem to imply less than worthy motives to us, from a party that was always claiming all the worthy motives for themselves. That is always a matter of political argument and I do not think we will make much ground on that. I rely on the facts and the facts are all in our favour, obliging us to do what we have to do.
Cé nach bhfuil sé i láthair anois, ba mhaith liom mo chomhghairdeas a chur in iúl don Chathaoirleach. Nuair a bhí mé féin sa Seanad i 1965 shuíodh mé in aice leis an Seanadóir Dolan. An bhféadfá mo chomhgháirdeas a chur in iúl dó?
Déanfaidh mé é sin.
It was a very interesting debate. It was a numbers game that concentrated on one set of numbers but not on another set. It seems to me to be inconsistent to say we are in favour of direct elections but then ignore the percentage of support as expressed in direct elections here and we use the parliamentary representation as the guideline and not the people's voice by percentage as the guideline. Which way do you want it? Direct elections are the most valid. The fair proportional representation of the various opinions is the most valid. If you do that it comes out five and five. You have to use the non-linear relationship between national votes and seats in the Oireachtas to get your 56 per cent to go on to add to that another 4 per cent to get the 60 per cent.
The Minister is not mounting an argument on the Government side to favour direct elections. He is mounting an argument in favour of non-linearity. He is mounting an argument in favour of skewing the figures by the uses in a proportional situation of a non-linear result in the Dáil election.
When Senator Conroy was reflecting the true representations of our parties, he of all people is numerate enough to know that that is not a genuine argument but a trick argument. If you want to know the proportional opinions of the Irish people you take the percentages of the huge sample who expressed their opinion in June. You can take that percentage down as fine as you like and it is over a big enough sample to be valid, and you do not take the 148 because we know there was a non-linear thing built into that already.
The Minister's side know that, the Fianna Fáil side, the Government side, know that as well as I do. I am afraid I find a big element of hypocrisy in resting this on a statistical argument. When you look at the figures a statistical argument does not stand up. However, in fact, if they want to, a majority in any national Parliament can distort away from the different balance of opinion as expressed in national elections. They can distort representations in the European Parliament coming from that national Parliament as much as they like. The French, traditionally, have done it very widely. We had a tradition of doing two equal halves. There were two equal halves on the 1st January, 1973 when we went in. But when the Coalition won an election in 1973 we actually had the forces in the Oireachtas to depart from linearity if we wished. Not alone did we not wish but it was never considered or suggested for a moment.
Which they did.
It was five, five to this moment. We have on the Order Paper a resolution to move away from five, five. I am now talking about events of the election of 1973 which gave us the power to do something which was obviously not done. We did not depart from such linearity.
One could go on on this endlessly but I do not propose to take up too much of the Seanad's time. Let me reiterate the argument about committees. Senator Yeats made a powerfully selected enumeration for the voting record and that was subsequently incapsulated in characteristically immoderate terms by Senator McGlinchey.
Perhaps the Minister for Foreign Affairs misunderstood the argument. It is not about the grouping. We are not arguing that we invent people from this Oireachtas to represent us on groupings where no such public opinion exists in Ireland. Nobody ever suggested that for a moment so bringing the groupings in is irrelevant. We are suggesting that it is important to have a powerful voice on the committees since the committee system is so important to the European Parliament, that it is important to have a significant voice in what is the largest group.
Senator Yeats made an interesting point that seemed to me to strengthen our argument, when he said that the Socialist group represented—I am not going to quote his words or misinterpret what he said—consumers rather than farmers.
Supported the interests.
I think that is a valid demographic statement about where most of the Socialist support in Europe comes from. I think that the groups in the Parliament, as any other groups of politicians, represent the interests of those who elect them. It is very important that within the Socialist group the argument for small farmers against simple urban consumerism be loudly articulated. That is in Ireland's interest, it is in the interest of the Socialist group, it is in the interest of Europe as a whole. When you go from five to six on a delegation you increase it by 20 per cent and that makes very little difference to covering the committees. When you go from two to one you simply say that certain committees will not be covered at all.
Senator Yeats knows this as well as I do. He may recall, in 1973, when we were all on the first delegation to Europe, an argument about who got what committees, which was quite a sharp one, between the five and five of each side. He knows how important committees are and he knows that, physically, one man cannot do it. It is precisely because there is—he validly said a rather uniquely consumerist approach to the European Socialist group—that the voice of Ireland has to be articulated in that group at the various committees and that people have to say: "Hold on now, I am a member of your group but you are not necessarily expressing the interest of my people who sent me here. You may be expressing the interest of urban workers in a very high cost city where they have a particular set of pre-occupations."
It seems to me the figures do not warrant six, four. It seems to me the effective working of the European Parliament does not warrant six, four. On the point of clarification my argument was not that it was simply a talking shop. I think all of us must assume that we are clear enough, at least in this Chamber, about what the powers and role of the European Assembly are and what powers it does not possess. The point was that there was no track to the Government in their legislative policy, in their power to do what they will. By having the delegations equal there was no threat to the Fianna Fáil situation prior to the general election of 1973 and there was no threat to the Coalition by equal delegations from 1973 to now. There is an argument for seeing, in the national interest, that all points of view in the nation are loudly expressed in all the committees. There is an argument more particularly, though in fact we do not make it, in this motion for not cutting the Socialist representation off because that simply means that certain committees will not get covered. The committees are where the really important work takes place. In fact, what we are saying is five, five representation. We are not saying in the motion one more Labour person. In regard to the cross-Border studies to which Senator Yeats made reference, where does he think the initiative for those came from except from Coalition members, Fine Gael and Labour, in the Council of Ministers? That is where the drive to do that came from.
I do not know if I am permitted but I just have to take issue with that.
I can only say to the Minister for Foreign Affairs that I attended the Foreign Affairs Council month after month when the Minister, Deputy Garret FitzGerald, sat in the President's chair and I sat in the Irish chair for the Foreign Affairs Council apart from attending other Councils, the Science council and occasionally councils of other natures. He can take issue as much as he likes but the record of that period of the Council validates what I say. He was not there and he is not in a position to know.
I accept that. Perhaps it would be as well if that relevant matter was raised in the Dáil where we can discuss completely what happened.
That is completely within the power of the Minister to do at any moment he likes. I do not want to go on endlessly but I want simply to refer to the very interesting thought that emanated from the Government benches—I am quoting Senator McGlinchey—that it was more than generous to leave four seats to the Opposition and that the Irish people had given them—I would interpret "them" to mean the Fianna Fáil Party—a mandate to seven seats.
I did not say seven seats.
The Senator said that it was more than generous to leave us four.
Yes.
I think that is authoritarian, that it is using a majority of votes in the Dáil, which does not correspond to a majority of votes in the country, to skew the representation in an authoritarian way. That is a pity but that blurting by Senator McGlinchey expresses the real intention of the Government and the Fianna Fáil Party, that when Fianna Fáil in Opposition had enjoyed half, the present Opposition 40 per cent is, to quote, "more than generous". That is the real attitude of the Government and it is a deplorable one. It was very useful to debate a bit in order to bring that out.
Deputy Tully fixed the constituencies.
Question put: "That the amendment be made."
The Seanad divided: Tá, 24; Níl, 18.
Tá
- Brennan, Séamus.
- Brugha, Ruairí.
- Cassidy, Eileen.
- Conroy, Richard.
- Cranitch, Micheál.
- de Brún, Séamus.
- Dowling, Joseph.
- Ellis, John.
- Goulding, Lady.
- Hanafin, Des.
- Harney, Mary.
- Hillery, Brian.
- Honan, Tras.
- Jago, R. Valentine.
- Kiely, Rory.
- Kitt, Michael.
- Lambert, C. Gordon.
- Lanigan, Michael.
- McGlinchey, Bernard.
- McGowan, Patrick.
- Mulcahy, Noel William.
- Ryan, Eoin.
- Ryan, William.
- Whitaker, Thomas Kenneth.
Níl
- Blennerhassett, John.
- Burke, Liam.
- Butler, Pierce.
- Connaughton, Paul.
- FitzGerald, Alexis.
- Governey, Desmond.
- Howard, Michael.
- Keating, Justin.
- Kilbride, Thomas.
- Lyons, Michael Dalgan.
- McAuliffe, Timothy.
- McCartin, John Joseph.
- Markey, Bernard.
- Molony, David.
- Moynihan, Michael.
- O'Brien, Andy.
- Reynolds, Patrick Joseph.
- Robinson, Mary T.W.
Tellers: Tá, Senators W. Ryan and Brennan; Níl, Senators Robinson and Burke.
Question declared carried.
Motion, as amended, agreed to.