I move:
That Seanad Éireann takes note of the Reports: Developments in the European Communities — 30th and 31st Reports.
Developments in the EC — 30th and 31st Reports: Motion.
I am speaking on behalf of the Minister for Foreign Affairs. As Senators are aware, the European Communities Act, 1972, imposes an obligation on the Government to make a report twice yearly to each House of the Oireachtas on developments in the European Communities. The motion before the House today asks the Seanad to take note of the last two such reports which have been laid before it, covering the two six-month periods in 1987.
The last occasion on which such a motion was put forward was in November 1987, when the House was asked to take note of the three previous six-monthly reports. The debate on that motion was concluded in February of last year. The Seanad has not been short of opportunities to debate matters related to the European Communities since then — for instance, last November a special debate was held on developments in the EC during 1988. Nonetheless, the reports provide a welcome opportunity to reflect on the Community's achievements as outlined in them, as well as on the main current issues facing Ireland and the community.
It must be acknowledged that of late a considerable gap has opened up between the publication of a report and the ending of the period which it covers. For instance, the 31st Report, covering the second half of 1987, did not appear until February of this year. This has been due chiefly to pressure of work not only in the Department of Foreign Affairs but also in other Departments which contribute to the reports. However, the 32nd Report, covering the first part of 1988, is with the printers and will be available shortly, and work on the 33rd Report, covering the second half of 1988, has been put in hand.
Delays in production of these reports mean that they lose their immediacy. For that reason, every effort will be made in future to ensure that they appear within a reasonable time, which I would regard as six months following the end of the period with which they are concerned. I would hope that we can establish, and maintain, a rhythm of a debate every six months from now on.
As I mentioned, the Seanad has already reviewed developments in the Communities during 1988. In a sense, therefore, we might appear to be working backwards to some extent in reviewing developments during the year 1987, which are covered in the two reports before the House. The year 1987, however, was a crucial year in the development of the Communities, as it was the year in which the Single European Act came into effect.
Senators will now be thoroughly familiar with the Single European Act, which has been extensively debated in the House. It provides chiefly for improvements in the Community's decision-making process, particularly the application of qualified majority voting in the Council in certain areas, most notably in the internal market area. The Single European Act also provided for the promotion of economic and social cohesion in the Community, an enhanced role for the European Parliament in the Community's operation, closer co-operation in the sphere of foreign policy and the development of Community policies in areas such as science and technology.
As we are all aware, the coming into effect of the Single European Act was delayed as Ireland was not in a position to ratify it due to the Crotty case. However, following the decision of the Supreme Court on 9 April 1987, the Government moved quickly to hold a referendum the following month which gave the Irish people an opportunity to consider the Single European Act and to renew commitment to the Community. Following their approval of the Single European Act by a majority of 70 per cent to 30 per cent and the depositing of Ireland's Instrument of Ratification, the Single European Act came into effect throughout the Community on 1 July 1987.
By that time proposals for a comprehensive package of measures designed to facilitate the future development of the Community had already been put forward by Commission President Delors.
The package, entitled "Making a Success of the Single Act", or the "Delors Plan", was presented to the European Council in February 1987. It included agreement on a new régime of own resources and budgetary discipline, new agricultural guidelines, a reform of the Structural Funds and a new arrangement for the British budgetary contribution. Negotiation on the package was at times difficult, and it did not prove possible to reach agreement on it in 1987. Agreement was finally reached in February 1988, thus giving full effect to the main lines of the Community's development implied in the Single European Act.
I would now like, a Chathaoirligh, to turn in more detail to some of the main areas of Community policy and, in accordance with previous practice in debates of this nature, I will not confine myself to events in the period covered by the reports under review but will deal also with developments up to the present day.
We are now approximately halfway through the basic programme laid down in the Commission's White Paper of June 1985 for the completion of the internal market. Over half of the 300 or so measures listed in that programme have now been adopted. While this represents good progress, it would be foolish not to recognise that some of the remaining measures are potentially difficult as well as important for this country, particularly the question of tax harmonisation. However, the Government are confident that satisfactory solutions will be found to the problems which arise in this and in other areas.
The European Council has recognized that the completion of the internal market is not an end in itself. It is rather an achievement which should enhance the capacity of the Community to pursue more effectively its wider objective of ensuring the maximum wellbeing of all of its peoples. A central feature of this process is the development of what has come to be known as the social dimension.
It is accepted at Community level that unemployment is the most urgent social issue to be tackled. It is, of course, a problem of particular and immediate concern to Ireland. In the forthcoming negotiations on the social dimension we will continue to urge that effective action is taken to ensure that the stimulus to economic growth and employment which the internal market is expected to provide is harnessed to the benefit of the whole Community.
The European Council has also emphasised the need to ensure the active involvement of both sides of industry in the completion of the large market. The mechanism through which the social partners are associated with this process at Community level is the social dialogue, which is being intensified in accordance with the provisions of the Single European Act. We welcome the emphasis being placed on the need to engage the support of the social partners in adapting to the changes necessary in the new environment which the internal market will create. The efforts at Community level to develop a constructive social dialogue mirror and complement the process of co-operation with the social partners already functioning in this country through the Programme for National Recovery.
Turning now to agriculture, the decisions on this sector taken in the context of the Delors Plan and subsequent measures adopted by the Agriculture Council have effectively completed the process of reform of the CAP. The general objective of this reform has been to reduce market support, including intervention, and to allow market forces a greater role in determining returns for farmers. The new arrangements now in place offer producers and traders a more stable basis for planning their operations over the medium-term. Earlier reforms restricting output for certain key commodities have already had beneficial effects on market balance and have led to higher returns for producers. This has been the case in the dairy sector in particular.
A strong competitive agricultural industry is, of course, of central importance to the economic and social development of rural areas. In order to ensure that a correct balance is achieved, rural development policy, must, however, also extend in an integrated way into other areas of economic activity. The importance attached by the Community to the promotion of rural development is reflected in its inclusion among the five priority objectives of the reformed Structural Funds. The aim of the Community's policy in this field, which is still only at an emerging stage, will be to integrate the activities of the agricultural, tourism, forestry, industrial and service sector in rural areas with a view to generating more employment and higher living standards. In this connection, the Government will be able, in the light of the experience which is being derived from the pilot integrated rural development programmes introduced last year, to make an informed input into the formulation of the Community's rural development policy.
I would now like to inform the Seanad of progress to date in relation to the reform of the structural funds in the context of completion of the internal market in 1992. A crucial factor in ensuring the successful completion of the internal market is the need to have a broadly similar level of economic and social development throughout all the regions of the Community — in short, the achievement of the objective of cohesion.
The Single European Act recognised that the task of reducing existing regional disparities is central to the achievement of this objective. The decision of the Brussels European Council in February 1988 to double the resources of the structural funds by 1993 was a tangible expression of the Community's commitment to achieve the cohesion objective. Moreover, in an effort to concentrate the funds where they are most needed, the European Council also decided that the contribution to the less developed regions would be doubled by 1992; that a special effort would be made for the least prosperous regions which, at the Taoiseach's insistance, included Ireland and the provision that, for these regions, the rate of assistance from the funds can be up to 75 per cent. These commitments are of major importance to Ireland.
Senators are, of course, aware that the Community's Structural Funds — the Regional and Social Funds and FEOGA Guidance Fund — represent a most important instrument by means of which the cohesion objective might be achieved. I am therefore pleased to report that in the course of the recent negotiations leading to the reform of those funds, Ireland has been successful in having incorporated many proposals designed to improve the effectiveness of those funds as instruments of cohesion.
I might refer again, because it bears repetition, to the decision to double the funds and to concentrate to a much greater degree than heretofore on the disadvantaged regions, which include Ireland. Of course, increased Community resources would be of questionable or little value if the member state concerned were limited in its capacity to absorb those resources. Accordingly, we were very pleased to obtain agreement that certain infrastructure projects with private sector funding will be eligible for Community assistance. Given domestic budgetary restraints this provision is of crucial importance to us. It means Ireland will be able to maximize the benefits derived from the increased funds.
I need hardly add that the reform of the funds is not just about extra budgetary resources for the Community's regions. It is also about making better use of those resources.
Ireland's National Development Plan, presented to the Commission on 22 March last, sets out our national priorities for Community assistance for the five year period 1989-1993. In the words of the Taoiseach, the plan contains the largest development budget ever mobilised to modernise the economic and social structures of this country and to expand its productive capacity. It reaches into every region of the country and every sector of the economy in a series of interrelated programmes designed to accelerate economic growth, increase employment and improve living standards and social equity.
The plan is the outcome of close consultations at every stage with the European Commission. The Government also undertook a wide spectrum of consultation not only at national but also at regional level. This ensured the full participation of regional interests from each of the seven sub-regional groups in the formulation of the plan.
I am confident that our logical and coherent approach at every stage from the earliest negotiations right through to finalisation of the National Development Plan will ensure that Ireland is well positioned to avail to the maximum extent possible, from the doubled resources of the Structural Funds.
Important as they undoubtedly are, the Structural Funds nonetheless represent only one of several instruments for pursuing the cohesion objective. The Single European Act made specific legal provision for ensuring that each area of Community policy should involve positive attempts to bring disadvantaged areas closer to the Community average. The Community policies on research and development are an important example of this. It is now widely accepted that research and development activity has a vital role in influencing economic development. Studies indicate that whereas the economic gap between the richest and poorest member states is 4:1, the technology gap is a 12:1.
The need for Community action to assist less developed member states in their efforts to diminish the existing technology gap has been recognised in the Single European Act which, for the first time gave Treaty status to the Community's policy on research. The Single European Act also gave special recognition to the role of Research and Development in strengthening European industry and encouraging it to become more competitive.
The main instrument by which Community policies on research and development may be implemented is the Framework Programme. The current Framework Programme covers the five year period 1987-1991 and includes all major Community initiatives in the research and development sector.
Ireland benefits significantly from Community research and development programmes. The annual flow of payments to Ireland is approximately £10 million per annum with an additional significant funding in contracts to Irish firms and institutions.
In addition to direct financial benefits, however, Ireland has derived other important benefits as a result of our participation in the Community's research and development programmes which have helped to develop our academic and industrial research capability and have allowed us to participate in and benefit from large-scale and advanced projects for which we would not otherwise have the necessary resources.
In addition to the Framework Programme the Community has devised specific programmes designed to build up the economic infrastructure and level of technological knowledge in the least developed regions.
In moving towards 1992 and the completion of the internal market, there are, of course other dimensions to consider which have a fundamental bearing on the future shape of the Community, its people and their cultural development and diversity. There is a new emphasis on the role of broadcasting and the audio-visual sector in general; and a growing understanding of the potential of the audio-visual sector to strengthen European culture in all its aspects including the needs of minority languages such as Irish.
The Community has recognised that co-operation in this sector must be intensified if Europe is to succeed in exploiting this potential. At successive European Councils, most recently at Rhodes in December 1988, heads of governments have given their political support in favour of a European initiative to develop the audio-visual sphere. The European Council also gave its support to the Community work programme concerned with regulation of this sector and decreed that the Community's directive on trans-frontier broadcasting should take account of progress made in a parallel convention in the Council of Europe.
I am happy to report that agreement has now been reached on the text of the Council of Europe convention and — last week — on the Community's directive on broadcasting. The latter has now been referred to the European Parliament. This will, of course, facilitate Community efforts to develop a coherent and effective policy at European level.
I would now like, a Chathaoirligh, to take the opportunity of this motion to inform the House of significant recent developments in the area of the Community's external policy.
The GATT negotiations in the Uruguay Round have major implications for the EC's external trade policy. In December 1988, the mid-term review in Montreal broke down over a number of controversial issues — in particular, over agriculture. At issue was the phasingout or reduction of agricultural subsidies; while the US and the Cairns Group argued strongly for cut-backs in the shortterm and eventual abolition of subsidies, the Community argued for long-term reductions and credit being given for measures already taken. Following consultations in Geneva in early April, the negotiations have been able to resume on a basis satisfactory to Ireland. It is hoped that it will be possible to conclude the negotiations on target, in 1990, and that the resulting agreement will strengthen the open international trading system.
The Community's external relations have continued to expand and develop, reflecting the interest elicited by the introduction of the Single European Market in 1992. Relations with EFTA have gathered a new impetus in recent years. The Community and EFTA internal market Ministers met in February 1988. A Community-EFTA Foreign Ministers meeting was held in Brussels in March of this year for the first time since 1984. At this meeting, it was decided to explore new ways of strengthening and expanding relations between the two groupings. Included in this examination are possible new structures which could lead to improved and extended co-operation. Ireland welcomes these developments, which we see as a practical way of improving Community-EFTA relations.
The expansion of relations with Eastern Europe represents a significant development in East-West relations. Official relations between the EC and the COMECON were established on 25 June 1988, when a joint declaration was signed by the Community and COMECON in Luxembourg. Trade and co-operation agreements were signed with Hungary on 26 September 1988 and with Czechoslovakia on 19 December 1988. Negotiations on agreements are due to take place with Poland and Bulgaria later this year. A mandate for opening negotiations with the Soviet Union on a trade and co-operation agreement should be submitted to the Foreign Affairs Council shortly. We see these developments as an important contribution to the improvement of relations between the two parts of Europe and look forward to the early conclusion of the negotiations on a mutually satisfactory basis.
Japan remains an important trading partner for the EC. Although the Japanese Government has taken measures to increase imports, the balance of trade remains an irritant to relations. The Community's trade deficit with Japan has risen from $10.3 billion in 1984 to $22.79 billion in 1988, although Community exports to Japan have improved in the last two years — by 20 per cent in ECU terms in 1988. Recent amendments to the tax laws have improved the prospects for the Community — including Irish — alcohol exports to Japan. We in Ireland welcome these developments and hope that further measures will be adopted to encourage and expand balanced trade between the Community and Japan.
Not surprisingly in a trading relationship as extensive as that which exists between the Community and the US, a number of problems exist. Of particular interest to Ireland is the Community's ban on hormones which affects US beef exports and has provoked US retaliation. Following the visit of Commissioners MacSharry and Andriessen to Washington in February this year, a task force of Community and US officials was set up to resolve this issue and it is hoped that agreement will be reached on the basis of their proposals. Recent high level meetings between Secretaries Hills and Yeutter with Commissioners MacSharry and Andriessen have resulted in a commitment from both sides to resolve outstanding problems so that trade can develop in an improved atmosphere.
Turning now to the question of Third World development, I would like to emphasise that Ireland's contribution to the Community's development co-operation programmes is a very significant part of our overall development co-operation policy. In 1987, the Community established a special programme to assist certain low-income, highly-indebted countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Under the programme, almost IR£390 million is being provided to those counties as quick-disbursing aid. The programme aims to alleviate the difficulties faced by the poorest sub-Saharan African countries in order to assist them in their efforts at economic adjustment. These countries face severe problems, particularly the cost of servicing their debts, the fall in prices of many of their export commodities, and insufficient external financial input. The special programme is making a valuable contribution to the alleviation of hardship in these very poor countries.
At present, a major negotiating process is underway aimed at replacing the current Lomè Convention between the Community and the 66 African, Caribbean and Pacific States. The convention is due to expire in February 1990 and it is hoped to have these negotiations completed by the end of this year.
Ireland has sought to ensure that due emphasis is given in the new convention to:
the needs of the least developed countries;
the development of primary education and primary health care;
the importance of the role of women in development;
the use of quick-disbursing funds in an agreed Community — Africa, Caribbean and Pacific programme to alleviate hardship caused by structural adjustment programmes.
Ireland will continue to be actively engaged in these negotiations.
I should now like to say a few words on the subject of European political co-operation. The main development in 1987 in relation to European political co-operation was the ratification of the Single European Act. Title III of the Act consolidated and gave legal form for the first time to the procedures and practices of EPC. Apart from the creation of a small secretariat there was little that was new in the Act, but by codifying EPC and setting out clearly its scope and limitations, it enabled the Twelve to enter upon a new phase of co-operation. Through its participation, Ireland has been able to enhance its influence in the solution of international and regional problems. We are fully dedicated to an evolving European Community and Title III accords with our commitment to balanced and practical progress in the field of European integration.
Ireland, in asociation with its partners, has been active in promoting the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe as the overall framework within which relations between the countries and peoples of Europe, in association with the US and Canada, are most effectively managed. The Stockholm Agreement on confidence and security-building measures and Disarmament in Europe within the CSCE came into effect on 1 January 1989. It has undoubtedly contributed significantly to the reduction of military tension between the countries of Europe and to the success of the Vienna CSCE meeting which concluded early this year. The influence of the CSCE process can be seen in recent developments in Eastern Europe. The Twelve have stressed their determination to use any opportunities provided by openings in the political systems of these countries.
In 1987 the superpowers reached agreement in principle on the global elimination of US and Soviet land-based imtermediate-range nuclear missiles. This formed the basis for the INF agreement signed last year which the Twelve hailed as a milestone in the field of nuclear arms reductions as it eliminated for the first time an entire class of weapons. The Twelve hoped that it would provide a significant impetus to further progress in arms control and disarmament and lead to an early agreement in the strategic arms limitation talks on the halving of the strategic nuclear arsenals of the superpowers.
The use of chemical weapons in 1987 in the Gulf War resulted in the twelve renewing their call for agreement on a global ban and pledging to work for the conclusion of a comprehensive, effectively verifiable chemical weapons convention.
Turning to recent developments in the Israeli-occupied territories, the intifada is now in its seventeenth month having started in December 1987. The Twelve have made clear their view that the status quo in the occupied territories is not sustainable and repeatedly deplored the Israeli repressive measures which make a peaceful settlement harder to find. Pending Israeli withdrawal they have called on Israel to scrupulously fulfil its obligations as an occupying power, in accordance with the 1949 Geneva Convention. They have stated that a just, comprehensive and lasting settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict can only be achieved through an international peace conference under the auspices of the United Nations.
Lebanon has been a continuing source of preoccupation of the twelve. With our partners we have recently called for a ceasefire in the present conflict and a negotiated solution to the Lebanese crisis. The terrible and indiscriminate shelling in and around Beirut should not cause us to ignore the situation in the south of the country which is still very unsatisfactory and where three Irish soldiers in UNIFIL recently were killed.
While the transition to independence is underway in Namibia, there has been little tangible change in South Africa. The 1987 white elections in that country served to highlight what is wrong with it. Within EPC we have continued to advocate the maintenance of effective pressure on South Africa for the dismantling of apartheid and the opening of a genuine political dialogue between the legitimate representatives of all sections of the population.
The year 1987 also saw the signature of the agreement among the five Central American countries known as Esquipulas II, itself the outcome of the Contadora process. The Twelve welcomed it at the time as offering an historic opportunity to end armed conflict and to bring peace and genuine democracy to the region. The peace process has since then often faltered, but it was again reaffirmed in an agreement in February this year and progress is still undoubtedly being made. There is now increased acceptance on all sides that these problems have to be resolved by the countries of the region themselves on the basis of democratic pluralism, social justice and respect for human rights.
On 1 January Ireland will assume the Presidency of the European Community. This will impose a heavy responsibility on the country.
Many of the practical arrangements for the presidency are already in place and the Government is currently reviewing the Community's agenda and its likely development in order to draw up priorities for the first six months of 1990. All necessary steps are being taken to ensure that Ireland will be able to discharge its responsibilities efficiently during the presidency, when we will be charged with the task not only of ordering and despatching the Community's business but also with representing the Community to the world at large. With commitment and dedication I am confident that our presidency will be a resounding success and reflect great credit on the country as a whole.
The European Parliament, as I have already mentioned, has attained a significantly enhanced role following the adoption of the Single European Act. We look forward to close co-operation during our presidency, with the new Parliament which will assemble next July.
Needless to say, we will also be working closely with the Commission. The close and continuing links which have been established with the Commission, at all levels, will enable us to achieve maximum co-operation during the Presidency and at all other times.
In conclusion, therefore, a Chathaoirligh, the period under review, and the period since then, have seen a remarkable set of developments in the European Community. It has gained strength and cohesion through the renewed commitment to the ideals enshrined in the treaties and has established itself on a secure footing to meet the challenges of the nineties.
First, in saying to the Minister that he is very welcome in the House which he indeed is — I would like to take the opportunity on behalf of my own party to send our good wishes to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, and to express the hope that we will have him back with us in full health as soon as possible. I am sure that all Members of the House would join in sending their good wishes.
I would like to thank the Minister for an extremely comprehensive survey of developments in the European Community for the period in question. As the Minister said in conclusion the period has been marked by a fairly remarkable set of developments. I would agree with him in his conclusion that during that time the Community has gained strength and cohesion through the renewed commitment to the ideals enshrined in the Treaties. Certainly, at this stage the Community has established itself on a footing more secure than most people could have imagined even a few short years ago.
It has been one of the characteristics of the European Community that its development over the years has seemed to come in phases. There have been phases of rapid, imaginative development, followed then by periods of setback, periods of stagnation — almost a paralysis — and then followed again by period of re-think where in a sense the leading members in the Community were forced back both to fundamentals and to finding a pragmatic way out of whatever crisis or series of crises that had to be overcome. We have seen this right from the very early stages of the Community, from the failure over the European defence Community idea in the fifties which then led, in effect, to a regrouping and a rethinking, out of which came the Treaty of Rome. We saw it in other stages. We saw it in particular during the time of President de Gaulle in France when numerous sustained obstacles were enacted against further integration and enlargement of the Community. Then, once again, having regrouped, rethought and in a sense regained some strength, the Community was able to make a further advance.
Great tribute must be paid here to the present President of the Commission and indeed to the outgoing Commission — hopefully the same thing will be said of the incoming Commission — to the sense of direction which the Community has at present, towards the dynamism and imagination which is being devoted towards solving problems within a context of movement towards a fixed goal. Perhaps the greatest tribute which can be paid to the dynamism of the present Commission and the present President is that neither of the two British Commissioners were reappointed by Mrs. Thatcher. This in itself indicates that both had "gone native" when they arrived in Brussels and had in fact become very firm supporters of a process which they had been very lukewarm about on their appointment. As a result they found themselves too far ahead of Mrs. Thatcher and both were despatched at the appointment of the last set of Commissioners. That is one indication that the Commission has been giving a lead and has been reaching out to the Community as a whole over the past few years.
We in this country must not at any stage weaken in our resolve to move as far as possible — and as far as is consistent with our national interests — towards the achievement of the ideals enshrined in the Treaty.
Again, as we face into a European election — just a few weeks away now — it is extraordinary how much we can take for granted about the way in which the European Community has developed over the past 30 or 40 years. It is very easy, when we are tied up day after day in negotiations on milk quotas, headage grants or on structural funds, to forget or to be unaware of the stupendous amount of progress which, in global terms, has been made in Europe over the past 30 years. Thirty years, in one sense, is a mere blink in the long term history of Europe. But what has been achieved in the last 30 years in terms of European development certainly makes the rest of the achievements of European history almost pale into insignificance. The map of Europe, the thinking of Europe, the workings of Europe, the politics of Europe and most of all the future of Europe has been transformed totally during that short period. Fifty years ago this year the Second World War broke out. Who could have thought, at the outbreak of the Second World War, when one surveyed the enfeebled political systerms of France and Britain, the poisoned systems of Germany and Italy, that 50 years on these four would be among the leading players in the process of which we are now part.
It is important, as we face into a European election, that we should remind ourselves once in a while of the origin and the genesis of the European Community. The European Community was born out of a sense of idealism and was put into being as a mechanism through which the countries of Europe would never again find themselves at war and as a mechanism which would allow them to express a strong sense of European identity, which would be beneficial to each one of them, which would preserve the individuality of each one of them but which would allow Europe to have this major presence on the world stage. As we face into the European elections it is important that we as politicians should try to rekindle the sense of idealism which is at the very root of the European Community. The Community is often dismissed as a rich man's club, as being over-bureaucratic, as being concerned largely with trade and somewhat boring and esoteric matters, but we must never forget that the fundamental, driving aim of the European Community is peace and the promotion of the wellbeing of the peoples of the 12 countries.
It is important as we face into the election that we at least try to rekindle some of that early idealism and put the whole question of what the Community is about and why it is there into context. We in this country are probably worse than most in not remembering the fundamental reason for the existence of the Community. We did not suffer the horrors of war. We were not, twice in a 40 year period, pitted in bloody conflict, against our neighbours. We do not have the folk memories which can still drive many of the peoples of France, Germany and Italy to try to ensure that there will never again be war in their lifetime. We have almost apologised for being Europeans. Those people who can stand up and say that they are total and committed Europeans and are nonetheless fuly integrated Irish persons at the same time are few and far between. Our leaders have, for whatever reason, always represented Europe in terms of the immediate economic and financial gains which are likely to accrue from Europe. For far too long, we in this country have thought of Europe almost exclusively in terms of, on the one hand, the Common Agricultural Policy, what it would do for our agriculture — the begging bowl mentality — while, on the other hand, trying to play down the implications of membership in terms of the obligations it would bring in addition to the privileges it provided.
We could, at this stage in our development of membership of the Community, do with a dose of honest reality thrown into the debate. We should not fool ourselves into thinking that there are not some very difficult decisions which we, as a people, will have to make in the coming years. Unfortunately, in the past the decision-taking process on European matters has been extremely elitist. Our political leaders have not sought to bring the people as fully into their confidence as they should be. There has been a feeling that if people were faced with the full reality of the choices they must make, they might perhaps pull back or flinch from having to take these decisions. I am talking about a number of areas in particular where I believe the present European campaign should be used for a full, honest and open debate. One obvious area is defence.
The Minister spoke at some length of the very commendable moves being made by this Government in the area of security policy. But the overlap between defence and security is often a very blurred one indeed. There may well be areas where, for other countries, defence and security are synomous and where defence issues tie in very closely with security issues. When does security go into defence and vice versa? We here have always tried to blur this particular issue. Maybe we were right to do so up to now, but I think it is time at this stage that we actually took a hard look at how the other countries of Europe see themselves and their long term defence policies within the overall European context.
We should try to pose the question honestly to ourselves: can we maintain our present position? If so, in what way? Are we doing it as openly and as honestly as we should be doing it? I am not sure. I think it is an issue from which we tend to move away. We had a debate in this House recently on this whole question. What appalled me in that particular debate was the sense of distrust which came from so many, especially left wing Members of this House. There was a sense that there was a conspiracy out there, of which my party was part, of which part of the Government party was part — to bundle or hoodwink us into NATO in some way. I am not aware of any such conspiracy. I am not aware of any pressure being put on this country to join NATO. I am not aware of any great groundswell of opinion in the country to join NATO.
I believe it would help the debate if it were put on a more open, honest and informed footing. I would like to see this Government prepare a discussion document, not a policy document, outlining the defence and security options open to this country over the next ten years. Nobody would expect a decision to be taken quickly but at least let us get the debate out into the open and away from the land of wink and nod, away from the innuendo. I very much resent the type of insinuations and allegations that were made by some of my colleagues here in that recent debate, the allegations that there is somewhere some sort of a hidden conspiracy, some sort of secret establishment in this country which is trying to shove us along the NATO path. Let us get it out into the open.
Likewise, in terms of issues coming up there is the whole question of what actually does European integration mean for this country in political, constitutional and judicial terms. We are moving inexorably along the path which sees a continuing pooling of sovereignty. We in these Houses and the Government have already given up a significant amount of the power of the authority, of the rights we had at the foundation of the State or under our Constitution. We have done that willingly. We have done it on the basis of the people consulted not just in one referendum but in two. Nonetheless, it would be useful if we could have some sort of a stage by stage development of how the Parliaments of Europe, and this Parliament in particular, will fit into an overall context of European political integration at some future date. Let us see spelled out the options that are there ahead of us. The Department of Foreign Affairs are well capable, along with other Government Departments, of providing such an outline of the options and likely scenarios we will face in the future.
Likewise there is the whole question of the development of our judiciary. Will we see a greater pooling of judicial sovereignty? What will that mean? What will be the relationship in future years between the Irish courts and the courts of the European Community? Again it is all happening almost as if our betters, those who perhaps shape policy more than the Houses of the Oireachtas, do not particularly want us to discuss these issues because either they feel that the forces of reaction in whatever shape they are would drown out the debate and frighten the politicians or because they feel it is better, in the best mandarin sense, to have these issues discussed quietly, agreement reached and then the implementation sought as quitely and as far away from the public gaze as possible. I am not saying that that is a view of the Department of Foreign Affairs, a Department for which I have the highest regard and the officials of which stand as good and better than most by comparison with the officials of similar Departments throughout the world. But there is a sort of mandarin mentality which operates more in foreign affairs than in any other area of public policy. It is a mentality which seems to affect Ministers when they take office, that you do not really want to frighten the people by shoving the issues out there too starkly.
I would like to see from this Government a discussion document because the Government probably have not taken decisions. Political parties have not taken decisions partly because we have not had this detailed set of options put before us to see what will happen over the coming years. We could all benefit from the beginning of a more open discussion on fundamental issues of this sort.
I am now going to move away from the broad general observations. Once again may I thank the Minister for the quality of the report which he has given us here this morning. It has been a substantial, comprehensive and very straightforward report which does put into context the range of activities which are touched by Europe at present. It is a very good issue of record to have here before us.
At this point I would like to focus on the 1992 programme expecially as it affects education and training. The Commission very clearly recognises that 1992 is not just about technical barriers to trade. It did so when it said the aim of creating a unified market is not merely to offer firms a bigger market in which to operate but also to engender a feeling amongst Europeans of being part of a larger unit within which they enjoy freedom of movement without formalities, freedom to study and work wherever they choose.
If 1992 is to be meaningful it requires that the Commission must be as vigorous in areas like education and vocational training as it is in stamping out discriminatory and unreal standards in the food and drink industry. Domestically it requires that the Department of Education and FÁS play their part alongside industry and commerce. I am not particularly happy with the progress to date and the impact being made by the European campaign. I have a feeling that it is not reaching out at this stage to many of the smaller and medium size industries, that it is not making an impact in areas of education and vocational training. It is not making the impact in the way I had hoped. I hope when the Minister is replying he might be able to give us some idea as to the future development of the European campaign. I have spoken to many small business people who still have not been touched by this campaign. It has made very little impact on them. It seems to be very Dublin based and not to be reaching out to the country. It does not have any great sharpness or buzz to it. Much of the earlier fizz seems to have gone out of it. I would be interested to know from the Minister what the future shape of this campaign is going to be.
I would like to mention very briefly two aspects of our preparation. In one of them the solution is in our own hands and in the other we are primarily dependent on outside control. I want to discuss first language education and secondly labour mobility. For years it has been one of the clichés of most debates that we speak about languages but as a people we have done remarkably little. Comparisons of linguistic attainments across the Community consistently put Ireland at the bottom of the heap. A recent European survey Euro Barometer October/ November 1987 revealed 80 per cent of Irish people confessing to an inability to follow conversation in any foreign language. Despite that unenviable record there is little sign of progress. Only 3½ per cent of leaving certificate students emerge with a pass in German. Only 154 students even took Italian. That continues despite protestations from Government and industry about the importance of languages for trade, our tourist industry and our ability to avail of employment opportunities in the industrial heartlands of Europe.
The question here is what is to be done. Progress should start with those who are studying a continental language in school. We need to assert that for them the object is to be able to converse with reasonable fluency and to make out in a continental country without language difficulty. While few would disagree with that objective, and it is given high recognition in a syllabus, its implementation is very different. The harsh fact is that for most students the immediate objective in the examination is that the marks are loaded towards written exams and away from conversation.
In the intermediate certificate, for example, the oral exams are optional and if undertaken counts for only 20 per cent of the marks. At leaving certificate level the marks allocated drop back to 15 per cent. The same is true at university level also. Not nearly enough marks are given to the oral content in examinations.
If we are to persuade pupils and teachers to place the emphasis on an ability to speak a language we can start by providing a greater number of marks for the oral examination. I have started with what we can do with those already studying a language but that should not disguise the fact that the pattern of teaching languages is also quite unsatisfactory. The second level curriculum is dominated by French and only a small number of schools offer a second language and of those which do, many force the student to make an either/or choice when it comes to timetabling. We must set ourselves the aim that every young person will achieve basic competence in two continental European languages at the end of second level education. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us details today of a major expected inflow of funds and input of expertise to the education system to ensure that we can begin to meet these objectives. We need to provide adequate numbers of teachers for those wanting to take German, Spanish and Italian so schools must be allowed to take on part-time teachers. Schools in the same geographical area must be persuaded to share resources, teachers and equipment. To fund this, I hope there has been an approach to the European Commission for Social Fund support. I believe that the money is there if the case is properly made for support of this kind.
The Government should not be shy — as it has not been in other areas — about raiding the national lottery to provide significant funds in the whole area of language teaching. It is of vital national interest and it would be a purpose appropriate to the intentions of the fund.
There is much that can be done in the whole area of adult education in the teaching of languages. One of the very encouraging things in this country over the past number of years has been the development of adult education, the development of what is called distance learning and the whole concept of the universities and the third level centres moving out into the community. One area in which this has enormous potential is the area of language teaching. It would not take a great deal of imagination or a great deal of effort to give this a priority it has lacked in the past to enable people in their evening time, their leisure time to work on languages.
FÁS should be encouraged to build on AnCO's success in training and community workshops throughout the European Community. I remember when George Birmingham was Minister of State the CERT trainees engaged in the refurbishment of the Irish College at Louvain and I believe there is a great future for the Irish College at Louvain as a centre for a number of major European linked educational developments and training developments for this country. It was a very imaginative move and one which I think will bear very good fruit. I am quite certain from my own contacts in Brussels that there would certainly be supportive attitudes to a request for funds from the Social Fund to assist in providing more training of this kind.
There is also the area of the recognition of qualifications. This is an area of considerable practical importance to this country because the concept of free movement of labour is central to the community. The demographic pattern of Europe ensures that there will be opportunities in the heartlands. We should not be at all abashed about saying that we want to take up our share of these. I believe the present demographic trends in Europe provide us with an enormous challenge and a huge danger. The demographic trends are fairly straightforward. Virtually all the major countries in Europe have a declining population. There is a shortage of skilled educated people going into the workforce. This shortage is going to continue over the coming years. What this means is that there is an enormous opening for the best and the brightest and indeed the competent and the average among Irish graduates, those who come from third level training, from the RTCs and from the universities. That opening is certainly there. What is happening at the present time is that the major companies in Europe, the Philips, the Siemens, the Unilevers, the GECs, these companies are greatly intensifying their recruiting in this country. Irish graduates are now almost top of the league in terms of their desirability to these companies. That is very flattering in one way. It is an indication that we have at the present probably the finest young generation we have ever had in our history. Our young people are bright, they are open, they are competent, they are enthusiastic, they are not afraid to work. They are highly desirable. The quality of education they get here is extremely good. So these people are very sought after and they are getting very lucrative worthwhile jobs, not just in Britain, but in Germany and in Holland and in other countries of the Community. This is a trend which is going to continue. But there is a down side to all of that for us as well. That is that on the one hand we are subsidising the educational training programmes and the workforces of other countries in a way in which we never thought possible. Some of the best of our graduates, expensively trained at taxpayer's expense, are now there to shore up the economic infrastructure of countries better off than us. It is a very difficult question because we are delighted our people are able to get these jobs. We are delighted they are walking into them. We are delighted that mobility of labour means something. But it also has implications for this country. Maybe those firms should be asked to put something back into the educational system from which they are benefiting so enormously. I think most firms will realise an obligation. Very few as yet have been prepared to do a great deal about it. It is a line which I think the Government should follow in dealing with firms which have benefited so much from this country. The danger is that this will drive up the wage rates being offered in this country to recent graduates. It will perhaps make some of our industries that bit less competitive than they need to be. It is an issue which needs in a global sense to be addressed, as to what are the benefits, the downside and the upside of this new trend which is quite striking at the present time.
In relation to the recognition of qualifications there has of course been progress and I would like to see much greater progress made on the whole question of the recognition of qualifications. The French, in particular, seem to make it very difficult for Irish or other non-French qualifications to be recognised in their country. There have been various vested interests at work in other countries as well in slowing down this particular process but it is one that is important to this country and I hope that it will get due attention.
I would like to bring my remarks to a conclusion simply by once again thanking the Minister for the comprehensive statement and to also say how pleased I am that the gap between the end of a period under review and the appearance of the report has been shortened so much that the reports will now appear with much greater frequency and much closer to the events they describe. For that I think we can be grateful and also as I said for the quality of the report.
May I join with Senator Manning in sending good wishes to the Tánaiste, Deputy Brian Lenihan. I think the House would unanimously extend good wishes for his speedy recovery.
I welcome the opportunity to review and comment on the 30th and 31st European Community Reports. I think most of us who are involved in public life at whatever level realise now that there is a new awareness, a new interest in the developing Europe. We are now more conscious and more aware that we are Europeans, that we have to have an interest and an input and I think this really is evolving to the point where in fact it is a healthy subject to discuss because up to now I would say our MEPs or the EC may not have done a great public relations job. Maybe it was difficult subject and a difficult message to get across but up to now it has not been successfully conveyed to those that are voting for our MEPs.
This is a great opportunity and the review of the report is timely. I certainly welcome this opportunity to contribute. Many of our young people who will be voting for MEPs for the first time are much more aware of their involvement and the contribution they are expected to make. All too often we only heard from Europe about the problems. We heard about the rows that go on at budget time. We heard about the late night sittings, the lack of agreement on agricultural policy and all of these vast areas of disagreement which, in fact, projected an image of a jungle that was never important to the average rural dweller in Ireland. It was something far away and foreign that we had to, by association, be part of but it never affected the life of the individual on the ground. That is in the past. Now we realise that a lot of our legislation, a lot of the laws and regulations and a lot of our budget and planning and the whole evolvement of Europe is going to involve everyone in the country. Our awareness today is important and everybody in public life has got to encourage his own people on the ground to be part of discussions that affect them in Europe.
We could speak for a week on this subject because every aspect of life is affected by our involvement in Europe, whether it is the annual budget, the food support structures, the new fishing laws and limits and regulations in which the Minister plays no small part. It is an important subject and especially at this time when a new European Parliament is about to be elected, the report has great significance for the Irish people.
We welcome the vast support we have got for our agricultural development. It allowed vast sections of those involved in agriculture to expand, it allowed them to open up markets for agricultural produce and it also allowed some of our major co-operatives and those involved in the agricultural industry — whether it be beef, milk or milk products — to look at future markets for agriculture. We are aware of this and we welcome it very much.
The youth of Ireland has a big opportunity. It is great to be about 21 years of age and to be leaving a third level institution and to be aware of the opportunities that now exist in Europe. The youth of Ireland see themselves as Europeans. It would be great if a young person could get a job in his own area. We can be sentimental up to the point where we believe it is a tragedy if this does not happen. But the reality on the ground is that if we are Europeans then we look on Germany, France, Belgium and Holland as an hour's trip on an aeroplane. The thinking of our young people is ahead of those that have laid foundations for us in Europe and it is a mistake if we are not abreast of our young people's thinking in this area.
Our new MEPs have a major task because in fact the new awareness in Europe is not going to leave them an easy life. The people who get elected as MEPs have a tough task ahead. They must leave home. Whether it is in Donegal, Kerry or wherever, they have to be in their offices and be fresh and alert on a Tuesday morning. That means travelling from Ireland on Monday evening. They have to be part of the many sub-committees and contribute in areas which affect the people they represent. This is no small job. It is no longer a casual job. If any candidate thinks this is a sop and a nice place to be and a very well paid job, he will be making a major mistake because the candidates that are elected will be expected to answer intelligently on the ground and make reports annually on our progress in Europe. This is a healthy approach and it comes from the awareness of the young people. It is going to be very important to all of us.
There has been a lot of discussion about our national plan. No national plan or plan of any kind would have 100 per cent support from all the different sections of the Irish people. Those of us in public life and members of local authorities realise that the national plan is a fair consensus of the programme for development which this country has submitted to Europe for funding between now and 1992. It covers a wide spectrum in proposing structural development that would help to bring this country's development programme up to date. If we get the support and if doubling the Structural Funds is a serious proposal which we accept it is, then Ireland will do very well out of those plans submitted. Some of the very people who are most critical of the plan fail to recognise the contributions of most local authorities and most educational authorities. I totally agree with Senator Manning that we should be highlighting the need for training and educational programmes for young people. I happen to have here a very substantial document which has come from the regional college in Letterkenny.
When one talks about the national plan one has also to take into consideration the vast amount of detail that may not be part of the plan because in fact, I venture to say if the national plan contained details from all the local authorities one would need a horse and cart to bring it into any building. The amount of input by third level colleges and by local authorities to the national plan is so great that it is totally adequate to give a fair picture of what our development needs are in Europe.
Europe will not be unaware of the development needs in Ireland. I am convinced that Europe is well aware of the areas where there is potential development, let it be the farming sector, the fishing industry, the educational sector, the training of our youth or tourist development. All of these people have had a major input and all of their plans and proposals are very well documented in Europe.
Some people claim that our plan is not a plan, that it is not sufficient. They are insulting the intelligence of the vast majority of those who have contributed to making a major contribution in putting a plan together. It may not be perfect. It can be criticised, altered and re-submitted but it would not achieve very much.
I believe that the plan is a useful one. People from Donegal and along the Border area could complain that the plan does not contain sufficient development proposals for that area. I wish to use this opportunity to tell the House that we have also major cross-Border development plans that are running side by side with the national development plan. Those plans take in a very large part of the south and the north. They cover an area which has been neglected. Over the last 50 years, very little major development has taken place in the north of Ireland west of the Bann. I claim that not enough development has taken place north of the Boyne or north of Sligo. The area of Sligo, Donegal, Cavan, Monaghan, Leitrim has not had major support. We were not in line for major funding that has gone into Shannon development, the DART train development, gas development, all these highfunding, input development projects.
There has not been comparable development in the west of Ireland, largely because there has to be a basis for development, I claim that it is now necessary for the Government to support enthusiastically a cross-Border development plan to cover an area which has been neglected for 50 years, that is an area which covers the counties north west of the Bann. Counties Derry, Tyrone, Fermanagh are certainly among the counties that have been totally neglected and any one who studies the map will see that these areas are now black-spots. I am pretty certain that it behoves all of us, especially representatives for those areas, to put forward plans at this time, when the EC are offering Structural Funds to support development, to bring industry and resources in those areas up to European standard.
The representatives on both sides of the Border have come together and we have at least two major cross-Border development plans, running in tandem. Anybody who says the national plan does not go far enough for the west of Ireland, Donegal, Cavan, Monaghan and that area, should be aware that the Government have a commitment on the ground and studies are already being done in those areas. I welcome that. I welcome it because a very large part of the internal difficulties and the struggle going on in the North is caused by the deprived homes and the deprived people, undereducated people who have had to leave their homes along the border. I have said a number of times that you cannot have the highest unemployed numbers on any register or any area without paying a price.
Strabane, very near where I come from, has the highest unemployment figures in Europe. There must be a price to be paid for that in terms of wastage of young people. I have sat outside the employment exchange in Strabane watching people queuing up to draw the dole. Now we realise that this is a part of Europe we have a problem on our doorstep. That problem is partly responsible for the ongoing violence with people having very little to do and very little future ahead of them as far as they can see. This is a very very important area for all of us. I say to people who represent the south, Dublin and other areas, "you should offer us your help, do not criticise the continued violence in the North without making some effort to understand where part of the violence comes from." It comes from total neglect on the ground. A small track on both sides of the border actually has been neglected for years. This is an opportunity to correct that.
We ask those people who are most influential at EC level to give us their maximum support in putting forward our plans to EC at this stage. I hope that that has some importance. I also ask that at this time when the review of the 30th and 31st European Reports is being considered and when local authorities all over Ireland are encouraged to be involved in European affairs, the Government should encourage as far as possible, local authorities to set up information offices at county level. This does not mean that extra funds will be involved in setting up major structures and employing great numbers of people. In every local authority there are people who are interested in Europe. I would encourage every local authority in Ireland to have an EC office where local authorities, health boards, educational authorities and business people can participate and have a means of communicating with their counterparts or through a central office in the EC. With new technology this is not a very difficult task. I see this as a major advantage for local authorities.
Many local authorities have initiated this type of development. I know of local authorities who send one or two people to Europe annually even at the expense of being criticised as junkets. They have established a good working relationship, and knowledge of the EC. It is very important to have good communication and understanding with the local authorities and the EC structures.
On my visits to Brussels I find there is less bureaucracy there than in most of our local authorities. It is very easy to work within the EC structures. Maybe that is because of its recent establishment or maybe that it is aware that it has to reach various nationalities and people with different languages and cultures, I find the helpful attitude of those involved in the EC wonderful. If anybody from Ireland visits an Ec office and he looks for assistance he will get it. We must develop. We must get people to realise that it is no longer a foreign parliament, that we are officially associated with it. That is timely now that we are in the process of electing new MEPs.
There are a number of peripheral organisations in Europe. One of them is the Community of Peripheral Maritime Regions. Donegal was represented in that organisation and I attended, representing Donegal, a number of meetings of Community of Peripheral Maritime Regions. They have put forward useful major projects and proposals. No other local authority in Ireland was represented. That is why I encourage participation and involvement and I suggest that the Government encourage local authorities to be associated with the Community of Peripheral Maritime Regions. It is a mistake if they do not do this.
I support Senator Manning when he said that we have to have more training for our young people. This is where the future of the country lies. The outworn and outdated slogans and the depression that has been with us for so long has got to be unveiled and got rid of for all time. That is what Europe wants us to do. It wants us to train our young people to have a new attitude and a new approach. There are major opportunities on the ground we have been passing over. When some of our young people in Donegal were talking about their future and their prospects, I said it was tragic to see somebody who lived most of his life under a sheet of corrigated iron in another country coming to Donegal, setting up in a business and within five or ten years he has three major businesses. We must make our young people aware of the opportunities in Ireland and we must encourage them. You can only do this when you get young people who have an open mind and who are prepared to take on programme training, and use computers, modern technology and communications. That is where the future for this country lies.
I come from a county that claimed to be geographically disadvantaged, a peripheral area, an area that had difficulty in communications, road transport, etc. I would like now to turn the tide and see our advantages, see what we have as a county — clean environment, clean water, clean air, educated young people, modern technology, well trained and abundant resources, etc.
The Irish fishing grounds cover 25 per cent of the total fishing area in the EC. That is a major resource. We have also major resources within our own boundaries. These are the areas we have to educate our young people to be aware of. We will not be the poor relations in Europe if we pull up our socks, educate our young people and have a positive attitude towards Europe. It is now most important that we elect the right calibre of people to be our MEPs. I am not the youngest man in the building, but that is no job for an old, tired, arrogant, disgruntled person.
The Senator is too hard on himself.
I can always count on being corrected by my learned colleague. I am not offering myself for Europe, I see many people who are offering themselves for Europe whom I certainly hope do not get elected. Their arrogant attitude, and their outworn slogans are not what the youth of Ireland want. We need people with open minds, people who have enough stamina and youth to go out there and represent us as a young country.
One of the most successful operations we have is the student exchange with Europe. FÁS have a major involvement in student exchange and are so successful that recently a new college of technology set up in France tried, by kindness and otherwise, to encourage the personnel in FÁS to relocate the student exchange headquarters at the new college of technology in France. I am delighted to report that we have people in FÁS who saw the significance and the importance of this college to this country, who could not be bought and could not be persuaded because they realise that our need in this area is greater than that of any other country, and that we have too long neglected youth training and its importance for us. The student exchange programme is of major importance to us. I see it as a major contributor to the future health and prosperity of this country.
I am delighted to have had the opportunity to say these few words. I have complete confidence in Europe and I hope we elect energetic people with stamina as MEPs who can bring the message across to bridge the gap between Brussels and Ireland.
Is maith an rud go mbeadh beirt ón Daingean ag caint lena chéile anseo in áit chomh galantá is atá timpeall orainn. It is always a pleasure to follow Senator McGowan. Yesterday people were scrambling to get in to speak and we were lucky to get two or three minutes. Today, it has been distilled to the essence of the workers of the House. I have often told Senator McGowan that he is very conservative, perhaps reactionary, that I disagree fundamentally with his politics, but that his energy and commitment to the House deserve to be recognised. Having said that I agree with very little of what he said except that we should elect the best candidates for Europe. However, we might not agree on who those candidates might be at the end of the day.
I want to refer to a number of things. These discussions on Europe go all over the place. We are always afraid to grasp the nettle of changes. I advert to a number of glaring anomalies I see when I look upon Ireland and this state in the context of Europe. I do not suppose people take a lot of note of them.
I, first of all, want to bring to the attention of the House the difficulty and the difference between travelling in this country and any other country in Europe. I am talking about the very basic thing that here in Ireland we drive on the wrong side of the road. What are we doing about it? We talk about standardising. We are always bringing in European conventions, European standards having some sort of agreements with Europe and the way we operate.
Here is a glaring problem we are afraid to address. Why, in the name of God, are we driving on the wrong side of the road? I never heard a proper explanation of it. I propose that a most fundamental change be made on that basis and that the Government immediately begin to make essential changes so that we drive on the proper side of the road like the rest of Europe do. There are a whole lot of reasons for that, a lot of them fundamental and a lot which will impinge on what my colleague, Senator McGowan, has talked about.
There are a lot of jobs, costs and safety involved here. We should look very carefully at it. There is nothing unique about this. Other countries have done it. Sweden did this overnight. They simply stopped all traffic on the road one Saturday and on Sunday they had changed to driving on the other side of the road, in other words the right hand side of the road. They now drive on the right like the rest of Europe. I propose that we also set in train the changes which are necessary in order to transfer driving to the right hand side of the road. For this standardisation we would be entitled to European subvention. That should be done as a matter of urgency.
Let us look at what it would mean. It would mean, of course, a huge increase in the jobs that would be available in this country because it would, in fact, mean a huge investment in the conversion of cars from right hand drive to left hand drive. In doing that there is a commitment from Europe on two levels, first of all, to subsidise the standardisation of conventions through the Community and, therefore, we would be perfectly entitled to get the support of Europe in making that essential change. As well as that, this would create the facility to move assembly plants from the European mainland or from different parts of the world to Ireland.
We recognise the difficulty of setting up motor assembly plants in this country which have to be organised and structured in a different way to any other place in the Community. We are actually losing employment. There is the other added, very essential cost of converting cars to right hand drive which has to be done for the Irish market.
We hear regularly from Government Ministers, from members of the public, from politicians of all levels about the need to reduce the cost of transport and the cost of cars in this country. We have built in increase by having to have our cars converted for right hand drive on the left hand side of the road. It puts us at odds with the rest of Europe.
As well as that, Senators who come from those areas of the country which depend very much on the tourist trade — there are at least three out of four here at the moment from the western seaboard
— will be aware that every year drivers from the continent come to Ireland are involved in accidents. People come off the boat, people come out from filling stations, people leave hotels and turn the wrong way. Similar accidents happen with Irish drivers on the continent. There is a safety aspect in this.
We as a nation should be prepared to change to driving on the right hand side of the road. It would create jobs, it would save lives, it would create the possibility of setting up assembly plants.
At the moment we do not have any motor assembly plant in this country. I want to give one instance of how important that is. At this moment in time, with a sort of rising economy one of the things that happens in a rising economy is that people have more discretionary money, more money to spend on non-essential items. One of the first indications of this is an increase in the number of new cars being bought. A very usual index used to show people have a little bit more discretionary money is the comparison between the number of cars being sold this year and last year. They are going up.
Everybody thinks that is a very healthy thing for the motor trade but everyone of those cars worsens our balance of payments because they are all imported. We drive on the wrong side of the road. We are different from all the rest. We are the Johnny who is out of step with the rest of Europe. To change to right-hand drive would facilitate the setting up of assembly plants, it would create a huge development in the industry which produces road signs and traffic flow information and all the rest of that. It would also bring a new safety factor into being for people who move from the continent to here and from here to the continent.
Therefore, for the sake of jobs, for the sake of money, for the sake of setting up extra industry in this country and for the sake of saving lives and better road safety, I would push that we now move to the European Convention of changing our cars to left hand drive and changing our driving habits to driving on the right hand side of the road. It is a very feasible practical measure which would be taken on board by our representatives in Europe. I hope to have a very positive response from the Minister, progressive as he is, on this matter. I know that it will be close to his heart.
On the whole question of transport, with the completion of the channel tunnel in the next couple of years Ireland becomes the only island country in the European Community and because of that we have a very great need to make sure that though we stand geographically on the periphery of the Community in terms of dealing with imports and exports, our industry is facilitated in every way possible. We should really take on board a proposal made by a group of people I do not normally agree with, people from the Confederation of Irish Industry and so on, who have talked about the need of having an air corridor between Ireland and the continent that would be subsidised and would facilitate movement.
I propose to the Minister that we keep this matter in mind that there should be a subsidised air transport link, what I would call an air corridor, between Ireland and the continent. That is absolutely essential. I will take that a bit further. Our normal export trade is on the surface, either by land or water but the amount that goes by plane is becoming more and more significant. I have looked very carefully at the recent report of Córas Tráchtála and I have watched with interest the growth in our exports by air to Europe. That is happening because it is becoming more and more costly for our industry here to export by surface, with all the difficulties involved as well. We are now beginning to export high value perishable goods by air. This is a very good development but should not blind us to the fact that one of the reasons for the big change is that many of our industries are not able to afford or take advantage of the surface link which should be there. That means not just an air link but also ferries. This comes up time and time again. I see the Senator from Cork who has always had a vested interest in the area of ferries, a very justifiable one on which I always supported him.
We must be prepared to guarantee regular, efficient and effective ferry services between Ireland and our neighbours. It is not a matter of supporting something in Cork as opposed to something in Wexford or Dublin. This is an essential link. We cannot develop a tourist industry in the south west if there are no regular communications there. It is not a matter of whether we support or can keep the Cork-Swansea ferry in operation or whether we can keep the Cork-continental link on a once-a-week basis. We have to put them there. If I want to set up an industry in the south west at the moment, if I do a feasibility study and I want to get involved in the regular exportation of goods, I have to be able to depend on the services there to do it and I have to know that there is a twice weekly ferry from Cork to the Continent and a daily ferry from Cork to the UK. I must know what service will be there for the next number of years so that I can plan my import-export strategy on that basis.
We cannot expect companies to be successful if their lifeline is cut off at the whim of some commercial enterprises. It is a far more basic necessity. I said that quite deliberately because the argument has been well made by people from Cork about the need to develop the tourist industry in that area. We are all aware of that but it is more basic. There is also the import-export of commodities from that area and not just from there. We are on the periphery of Europe; we have an entitlement from Europe that communication between ourselves and the centre of Europe would be first class. We have more of a right to that than anybody else in Europe and, therefore, I would ask that we look for that.
In speaking earlier Senator McGowan talked about the great need for education and training. In dealing with education and training it is quite obvious that every study has shown that no matter how bad the rate of unemployment becomes, no matter how few jobs are available, there certainly has always been one fact, that the more qualified the person is the more likely they are to get a job. That is why Senator McGowan is absolutely right in saying that we need to invest money in education and in training through the whole network. What are we doing about it? We are going about it very badly because we are not putting money into this area. I want to make it quite clear, we do not subscribe to the principles which were outlined by Senator McGowan. It starts off at the primary school. Pupils and teachers in the primary schools know about 1992. They know that all the barriers will be broken down and that we will all be one. I can assure you that we will not be all one because the primary schools in Ireland will continue to be the least resourced, the least financed and the most underdeveloped structurally in Europe.
I recently needed to make a study of the pupils in different countries in the European Community, 11 out of the 12. What I found astonished me. In Ireland we are talking about cutting back on teacher jobs. We have 2,000 or 3,000 fully qualified teachers available to make a dramatic input to Irish primary education but they are selling hamburgers in New York, parking cars in London or serving pints in pubs around the country. They are looking for any kind of job except the job in which we have invested a huge amount of money to have them qualified to do. What does that mean? In very simple terms, if you take the number of pupils in classes around Europe in different countries, an average figure of approximately 21 is the pupil-teacher ratio. The figure in Ireland is over 30. I am just giving that as a reference. In other words we have 50 per cent more in our classes than the average European class. At the same time the Government talk, on the one hand, about bringing European standards to bear and having everything in Ireland the same as in the rest of Europe and, on the other hand, about cutting back on the facilities, support, structures and financing of primary education. The two things do not gel. As a teacher, I find it totally unacceptable, indeed hypocritical, that we have the great outward-looking proposal to be the same as Europe, to break down the barriers and to bring in mobility by 1992, but it is not happening.
We have a great chance now to remedy this, with births beginning to stabilise. I have looked at the recent figures issued by the OECD countries and we now have a marvellous opportunity of bringing our countries into line with the rest of Europe because, by a very small movement of teachers, by a very small commitment from Government, by requiring of Government that they would do no more than increase by 1½ per cent the budget of primary education, we could, over the next short period of years, bring Ireland into line with Europe on the question of class size. We demand that that should be done very urgently and this House should demand that that be done. It should not be across party lines.
There should be no party breakdown on this issue. As Senator McGowan said earlier, it should be a commitment to our youth, a commitment to our education, a commitment to the future of this country that we would be prepared to invest money on the structures. I will be very pleased to hear the Minister respond on that particular issue.
I recognise that one of the great difficulties in services in this country is the almost unique distribution of population. In travelling through Europe one observes that it is structured in towns, villages and cities. You do not see that in Ireland. When you drive around Ireland you see houses everywhere, on tops of hills, the bottom of valleys, at the back end of places where you wonder if there is a road. They are nearly all occupied by families and they all need education, medical services and communications, which cost a lot. We should recognise that and be prepared to pay for it. We had fine words here yesterday. I heard one Senator talking about the Blasket Island being on the west of Europe, that we should not turn it into a national park but reinvest in it so that people could go back to live on it. There are people in the city who look down to the west and say that it is romantic, that people should be kept in the cabins on their islands and not speak English so that they will not be able to participate in the life of the rest of the country. That just is not on. The people in the west have a right to the same developed, improved style and conditions of living as the rest of Ireland. Europe is not about retaining cultures of the Victorian age. Europe is about retaining cultures but allowing people a standard of living that is Europe wide.
A major problem arises on the education area as well in regard to the recognition of qualifications. The whole basis of the European Community is the Treaty of Rome, which dealt at length with the position of mobility of labour so that workers could move from Italy to Ireland or from Ireland to France or to England or wherever. Because of that there has been a lot of development over the last number of years in recognising qualifications and of diplomas etc., from the different groups, professions and categories. This has not been easy to achieve. Certainly jobs in the veterinary, medical and nursing areas have all created difficulties although a certain amount of progress has been made. It is essential that Irish people are a part of Europe. One of the great claims — Jacques Delors made it during his recent visit — is that there should be a right of transfer that a person working in Ireland who wishes to move to Spain for two years to work should be facilitated. There should be transfer and recognition of qualification so that people can move from one country to another. Of course there would have to be conditions attached but I would not object to that.
The theory is that the teacher from Dingle might like to move to Denmark for a year or two and that this should be facilitated by Governments. This has been agreed by Governments, not on a bilateral basis, but as a European wide objective. In the area of education, for instance, a communiqué was issued in June 1988 which called for the mutual recognition of the three year qualifications of professional groups. In other words, a three year qualification of any professional group should be recognised throughout the Community as a starting point. In practical terms, that makes sense. We are saying that the person trained and qualified as a teacher in Edinburgh, Dublin or Limerick goes through a three year training course leading to a qualification. They are all qualified as teachers. There might be slight differences but they go through the same topics of psychology, philosophy, all the different aspects of history, comparisons in education and everything necessary to comply with the regulations of the country. There is no reason there should not be recognition of those. Despite that fact, however, we have a much more distinguished record in European terms and the Irish primary teacher would be seen as the most qualified. Nevertheless, for the last number of years we read in the newspapers that qualified Irish teachers are having serious difficulties in being recognised in Britain. The reason for this is inexplicable and cannot be justified.
This matter has been raised by the Minister for Education on a number of occasions. The INTO — of which I am proud to be an executive member — have taken this up in Dublin and London and with different Government departments with a view to making progress. We now have a situation where Europe is insisting by a directive issued in June 1988, that all European Community countries would mutually recognise the three year professional qualifications of the other countries in the Community. That is the proposal and it has to be implemented. It would appear that developments are taking place in Britain at the moment which would go against the spirit of that. This has been taken up by the INTO at various levels of Government and also with the Department of Education and Science in London. It would be regrettable if any move were to take place in the next year or so which would be a backward or regressive step. More important than that we must also actively work towards facilitating the exchange of professional people between different countries. There is no reason for an Irish teacher not moving to France to work for a year or two or a French teacher moving over here.
Earlier we discussed the Members of the European Parliament and what their contribution might be. This is something the European Parliament has been fiddling around with for the last number of years. It is a very simple thing to operate, Governments simply say that they agree. One of the people in your party, a Chathaoirligh, whom I always admired, was Donogh O'Malley, because he always took the decision first and let the administration catch up afterwards. A little bit of that would not go amiss now. We should take a decision and let somebody else work out the small print and the organisation. We should now decide that the Department of Education would facilitate teachers who wish to move to some of our European partner countries for a period of years and the exchange of teachers coming here. There would, of course, be conditions. There would be no point in taking a Spanish teacher to Ireland if he or she could not speak either English or Irish and there would be no point in an Irish teacher going to Spain if he or she cannot speak Spanish. Certain conditions would have to apply to this to make it work. I am talking about the general principle that it should be made available and until we do that we will remain on the periphery of Europe.
The difficulty is that Ireland now has the opportunity with our population profile of not just being the young Europeans but of being — more importantly — the middle-aged Europeans. It is the middle-aged Europeans who will run the country. I do not say that because I have reached that magic number of 40 myself — although I look older. It is because the power is always vested in the middle-aged. We want our people in Europe. We do not want them here talking about what we might be able to get from Strasbourg, Brussels or Luxembourg. We want our people in Strasbourg, Brussels and Luxembourg telling us what they can give us. The only way that can be done is by having them over there. I am not talking about elected politicians. I am talking about the people working in the operation of everything from industry to the bureaucracies of Europe. We need our people at all levels of influence so that our country will also participate, not to be singled out for special treatment, but to get fair play. Fair play for us on the periphery of Europe means a subvention to have us well within the circle of wealth which extends around the Brussels-Strasbourg area, Paris, West Germany and northern Italy.
There is a nice atmosphere but I have a right to interrupt the Senator. The one thing that strikes me about what he has just said is about the elected representatives. I feel strongly that there is not enough information coming back from the countries to us. The feedback is not positive and constant. When you ask for information you do not know where to go. Do you know what I am trying to say?
I do. For once we are totally in agreement. You will also recall that at a recent meeting of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges I proposed, seconded or put forward the proposal that Members of the European Parliament should have right of audience in this House and should have a right to participate to some degree in this House. It is quite appropriate that we should also consider moving in that direction. The obverse of election is accountability. Accountability means communication and communication means dialogue. At the moment our MEPs dialogue takes place only in the European Community. It is very badly reported in the media because it is not news. Therefore, I suggest that we reserve a couple of seats here for members of the European Parliament and that on certain specific conditions they would have right of audience and right of participation in the workings of this House.
This is an ideal opportunity for Members of the European Community to put forward their views. There is no reason under the Constitution for not doing it. We have cleared it under our own Standing Orders.
We should move very quickly on this so that members of the European Parliament would have the right of audience and participation in the Seanad. It would give it a national level, national status and national importance. In terms of the working of the Seanad it would — as the Cathaoirleach just said — facilitate the flow of information about what is going on in the European Community and here. I criticised them a few minutes ago for fiddling around with this issue for a number of years and asked why they have not done it.
I know that members of the European Parliament, including Irish members, have been working from both sides of the political spectrum. John Hume is the only Irish member of the Socialist group although we will change that shortly. The members of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have been involved in that particular area over the last number of years and agree with it but they are also constrained by bureaucracy because they do not have the power to take a decision on this matter. We all agree on something so let us move it along and take the decision. We should facilitate mobility and allow this to take place.
In the European Community they facilitate interaction between different groups provided that three stages are involved. They subsidise meetings of different groups. For instance Co-operation North in our own island try to facilitate the movement and the interaction of people on both sides of the Border. With any border we need movement over and back. We also need to facilitate the movement of young people between different countries in Europe so that they can get to know it and the people in Europe who speak different languages.
That brings us to the question of communication in terms of languages. At least six Government Ministers in the last year have said we need to have more European languages in our schools. It is like saying we are opposed to sin. Everybody agrees with the statement but nobody is doing anything about it. If we need more European languages in our schools then we should just decide to teach them and implement a relevant system. The teachers of Ireland will not be slow in responding to that challenge. I have one perfect example of how necessary it is. I was looking at the balance of trade figures between Ireland and different countries in Europe. Of the ten as opposed to the twelve, because I did not have the figures for Greece, Portugal or Spain at the time, but of the original nine or ten countries in the Community, we had the worst balance of trade with Italy. Maybe it is just a coincidence but Italian is the least taught language in Irish schools. I believe that is not just a coincidence, there is a very close connection there. When you want to do business with somebody you cannot always work through an interpreter, you want to have one of your own people making the case for you, talking to the person on the other side, somebody who understands the nuances and what one is about. If you do not have people who can speak Italian you will feel that Italy is not a place one wants to do business with. There is a huge market in Italy — I think it is the biggest market in the Community — and we need to get into it. How can we do it? Let me go back to the unemployed teachers. There are at least 2,000, probably 3,000 available unemployed, fully qualified primary teachers. People might not be aware of the fact that although European languages are not taught under the curriculum normally in Irish primary schools many of our primary teachers are qualified in a European language. Many of those unemployed teachers would be in a position to introduce European languages in Irish primary schools.
People will say it would be a difficult thing to do and of course they are right. We should decide to employ 500 of the 2,000 teachers now and spread them around the country to facilitate the introduction of European languages in Irish primary schools. We should give each one a school in an area and work towards the implementation of a European language. It should be done to create employment. It would be doing the groundwork and laying the foundations for future export and trade. All in all it would make us more involved and more participative Europeans.
I could gladly speak for another hour, or two or three on Europe and I know my colleagues would love to hear me. However, I will finish soon but first I want to recap on some of the things that I have said, particularly before Senator Mooney came in. I did propose that we would first of all change to driving on the right. I also proposed that we should have an air corridor link——
I thought the Senator was coming to the end of his journey.
I was only beginning my journey. I will perambulate and meander through Europe for a number of hours if the Senator tempts me much further. We should drive on the right hand side as we are out of step with the rest of Europe. We are driving on the wrong side of the road. Let us get across to driving on the right, that will create employment, facilitate the setting up of industry, and save lives through safer driving habits. It would also create a brand new industry in road signs and new traffic flow information.
With the Seanad campaign coming up I hope you know which side of the road you will finish up driving on.
I am glad to hear that a Seanad campaign is coming up because my Seanad campaign started two years ago. It continues and will continue apace.
It is a long road.
It sounds as if I will not be seeing Europe this summer from what you are saying, a Chathaoirligh. This summer's campaign will be on the high roads and byroads of Ireland. The Seanad campaign is not three weeks handshaking around the constitutency and getting to know people. It is three months of hard slog all over, grabbing for, grappling with, working for and persuading people to cast the votes in the ballot box right to the very last minute. However, that is for the future. I talked about driving on the right side of the road. I proposed the air corridor link between Ireland and the Continent. I also supported what my colleague from Cork will be talking about in a few minutes — the question of the ferry link between Cork and the Continent, between Cork and the UK and between the various parts of this country and the UK. We need to have that subsidised and as people on the periphery of Europe we are entitled to demand that.
I have also talked about the mobility of workers, the movement of workers from one country to the other and the need to facilitate and take decisions on that. It is probably enough to be going on with and I look forward to hearing the Minister's response later on in the afternoon. I certainly intend to listen to every word and follow him up on every word.
It is never easy to follow an eloquent and knowledgeable person such as Senator O'Toole.
He is a hard act to follow.
However, I must say that his words often are very inspiring and this occasion was no exception. It is also one of the benefits of being an Independent that one does not have to indulge in the mundane trappings of running the Government and trying to pay for them.
I will put that in my election address this year.
Please do. The Minister's speech this morning gives one great range and, as Senator O'Toole said, one could go on for hours just on this document alone. The key note was the aspiration of cohesion. The Delors plan is to further advance the concept of Community cohesion. Now that the plan, the new regimes addressing the needs for budgetary discipline, agricultural guidelines and reform of the Structural Funds and other arrangements are virtually in place, there is a need for us to address ourselves to the problem of how this country can respond to the need to be more cohesive in the European context.
The Minister's speech at the very outset goes to what must be the fundamental concern of every country in the Community — certainly this country is no exception — the need to address the ongoing huge unemployment problem. While there have been, hopefully, some glimmer of light at the end of that rather long tunnel in recent weeks and months, the problem remains substantially unresolved. It is consoling to us, as Members of an Irish Parliament, to find that the Community continues to exhort the member governments to address the fundamental problem of unemployment above all others. They also indentify the need, as indeed this Government have already very capably done, to involve all sides of industry in this process. That has been proved here under the Government's own Programme for National Recovery. However, aspiring to address unemployment and actually doing something about it are quite often quite different things. In regard to the reform of the Structural Funds and the Government's national development plan — as we debated it at some considerable length here in recent weeks and I do not propose to go into it at any great length today — I am confident that this effort to use this priming pump to address the unemployment problems will be successful.
The broad range of that national development plan addresses to a large extent the fundamental difficulties we have had and will continue to have in this country as a member of the European Community. Senator O'Toole has touched on this in a very substantial way here today. But we cannot alter the fact that we remain on the periphery and as a consequence we must continue to exhort our European partners to recognise that fact. Until such time as we address that fundamental difficulty of bringing us in as far as is possible from the periphery of Europe, we will continue to have unemployment problems, we will continue to have social problems and we will continue to be, in effect, the rather poor relations of the European Community. That should not be so.
The need to address the transportation problems has been touched on by a number of Members here this morning. That is an indication of how important everybody regards it. Of course, it is the single greatest impediment we have as an island nation and a peripheral nation in the European context — our ongoing difficulty of transport costs, our inaccessability to some of the European markets and so on. The National Development Plan is endeavouring to address that problem by utilising the funds that will be forthcoming under this plan to develop a proper road network — type of Irish autobahn system, I hope — that will bring us in contact with mainland Europe and indeed bring the peripheral parts of this country into greater contact with the eastern seaboard which has obviously the greatest preponderance of population. This is so important that I think it needs to be addressed with great expedition. It will have to be the main priority of the National Development Plan when it comes into operation at the end of this year, as the Minister has advised us. We must proceed with all expedition in this area because all other facets of the developments which we hope will ensue with our access to the great market in 1992 will be contingent on accessability. The first step on that long journey will have to be the provision of some kind of a proper road network.
Senator O'Toole touched on a very sensitive aspect of the transportation difficulty in relation to the need — and there is a great need in Government terms — to produce a national plan in relation to surface transport in this country, and when I say "surface transport" I mean primarily by sea. We have this ongoing problem of a preoccupation with one or two ports on the eastern seaboard. It is good economics to use ferry ports where you have the shortest sea crossing. But, if we were to apply the discipline of good economics to all our European problems, I presume the European Community would not be interested in doing anything with us in the first place. If we are to ask Europe to address the problem of bringing Ireland in from the periphery then we as a Government and as a people will have to address the fact that parts of our own island are being consigned to the periphery of this country by virtue of the fact that we do not have access to our main markets in the UK and on the Continent. I speak primarily about the need for a ferry link into the south-west region, a corridor that had a constant unbroken chain of sea ferries for the past 148 years until the chain was broken in the early eighties. Unfortunately, the chain has been broken again in 1989. I am aware that the Minister present, in his capacity as Minister of State with responsibility for Tourism and a Deputy for the Cork region, has been striving with might and main to resolve that problem and I am confident that we will have it resolved by 1990 for that year's tourist season.
There is a need to kill off this problem of stop-start, going this year, not going next year and so on. Senator O'Toole was quite right in saying that it proves a very definite deterrent for political industrialists when contemplating setting up an industry in the south-west region. When they look at the feasibility of access transport, deliveries of raw materials, deliveries of the finished product back to the European mainland and so on, they find that they cannot be certain whether the delivery trucks will have to go all the way to Rosslare, Dún Laoghaire or indeed up to Larne, as they do in many cases. This is a major impediment in the development of industry and an even greater impediment in the development of the tourism industry, as the Minister, I have no doubt, is aware.
We are hopeful that with the substantial improvement in the regional or provincial airports the difficulty that will be created this year by the absence of a Cork-Swansea ferry will be redressed in a fairly substantial way, but it will retard the growth potential of the region for tourism if we cannot be certain of a surface transport into the next decade. I have no doubt that, in concert with the total transport examination going on under the National Development Plan, the need for access to the UK and to Europe through the southern sea corridor will not be missed by the Government.
I should like to make a few other points in relation to the Single Act and other aspects of the Act such as the Delors plan. There are many welcome aspects to it and many advances have been made. I think it is incumbent on ourselves to respond now. When we emerge from the airport here in Dublin we see this famous sign about the young Europeans, but the fact remains that we still have not convinced the bulk of the people, particularly our graduates, who emigrate from this country, sometimes through necessity and sometimes by choice. They are not looking to Europe, simply because by and large they do not possess a competence in a European language or languages.
An interesting statistic emerged last year. We spent £40 million on the teaching of Irish last year, contrasted with less than £4 million which was spent on the teaching of German, which most commercially oriented people will tell you is a vital language for anybody going to do business in the European mainland at present. I would certainly not suggest that we should reduce by one penny our contribution to the Irish language or indeed our commitment to it. The debate that took place here yesterday, the need to retain our own cultural identity and so on, is a graphic indication of the Government's commitment to the retention of our language and to highlighting the importance of our cultural heritage. The fact remains, however, that we are, in effect, only paying lip service to the need for a European language. Until such time as it becomes an essential ingredient in our first level education, where young people starting off at national school will come out at the end of that six or seven year cycle with some competence in at least one European language, until such time as that nettle is firmly grasped we are only whistling in the dark in relation to making serious incursions into the European markets.
Whether we go down the road Senator O'Toole was exhorting us to do and release 400 or 500 national teachers around the country — it might be one of the ways to do it — I do not know how the Minister would respond to that. But it is important, if we are to convince people that we are serious about making this impact on Europe in 1992, that we should have a proficiency in the language of our trading partners. That is absolutely vital. The figure of £40 million as against £4 million on that very important language, German, is an indication. Senator O'Toole's comments in relation to Italian were equally valid, because I think the expenditure on Italian was less than £1 million. We are not serious in talking about young Europeans. We are not producing young Europeans if they cannot speak a European language apart from English and Irish. That problem needs to be dealt with urgently. We are being asked by the Government to address the challenge of 1992 as actively as we can, but we are still negligent in this area of language and it needs to be addressed quickly.
The European Convention in relation to ongoing assistance in the area of research and development is particularly important to Ireland because most of our technological institutions and industrial companies quite often do not have a sufficient financial base to seriously indulge in large scale R and D. The fact that there is now additional European assistance available for this is significant for Ireland. There is a need to redress this imbalance in the technology gap of 12 to one, which is a startling figure. The Community has however recognised the need to involve countries like Ireland in the R and D assistance area.
The same applies to the broadcasting and audio-visual sector. This has been highlighted in a very graphic way in recent months by the success of the IDA in inducing American companies to set up in Galway and Kerry utilising the redundant computer network that is available there at night and so on for US motor insurance companies, medicare companies and so on. This is only the tip of the iceberg. There are so many other areas where the availability of a proficient workforce is being grossly underutilised. This is another area which is comparatively neglected and which needs to be addressed in a more substantial way.
In relation to the improvement of Community relations with other trading groups, particularly the Eastern bloc, it is very welcome to see in the report this morning that a mandate has been opened for negotiations with the Soviet Union to initiate a trade and co-operation agreement. It is particularly relevant in the Irish context that this problem will be resolved because we hope that we are ahead of the posse for once in our lives in relation to this area. We hope that the Taoiseach's substantial initiatives in this area over the past months will come to fruition and will not be impeded by the lack of a trading arrangement in Europe and the East bloc and West bloc.
We have a lot to offer in this regard. The Soviet Union does not necessarily have close liaison with any of our European partners to any major degree, with the possible exception of France. There is a vacuum that we can fill. It is abundantly clear that, even in the short time span of our recent negotiations with the Soviet authorities, many doors have been opened in relation to the trading of oil, the servicing of their international fishing fleets and so on. We can see what a huge difference access to this very important market has made to the trading problems of Aer Rianta and how it has very substantially increased their profits. We can see in your own area, a Chathaoirligh, the impact it has made in the resusitation of Shannon Airport. This is a major indication of the potential of this area. It should not be impeded. It is important that this trade co-operation with the Soviet Union would be expedited in the European context so that it would not prove an impediment when we set up this trading arrangement.
In relation to the relationship between the EC and the United States, the recent hiccup we have had and the danger of trade barriers going up once again between ourselves and the United States, happily that problem has been resolved, and I hope it is not in the short term. It was quite gratifying to see the very significant role Commissioner MacSharry played in the resolution of this problem recently concerning the anxiety of the Americans to export cattle which had been treated with hormones and so on. I should say as an aside that it was rather disconcerting in the last few days to find the UK authorities picking up cattle exported from this country which had been treated with hormones. It is rather a contradiction in terms if we are falling out with the Americans over it and if in turn the farmers here are treating their own cattle with hormones for export to the UK. Are we being vigilant enough ourselves at home in this regard? I am confident that we are.
I would like to mention also Third World development vis-à-vis the European Community. This is the way Ireland has to go in the future. The magnitude of the Third World problem, particularly in Africa, is such that, even with the best will in the world, the type of huge response wh have had in Ireland to the demands being made on us by the Sudan, Ethiopia and so on is trivial in the context of the total problem. It is only by massive trading blocs such as the European Community participating actively that we can hope to make serious inroads into this huge Third World problem, particularly on the African continent. We have done our bit individually as a country with our missionaries and non-religious people who have gone abroad as support groups to various African Governments. This is not enough any more, given the magnitude of the problem, especially on the African continent. The introduction by the European Community of quick disbursement of aid is a very welcome development. The problem in the past was that when African countries sought funding from the World Bank, etc. it was too slow to come, there were too many impediments in its way and quite often when it reached its required source it was too late in the day.
This is a very welcome report. It is comprehensive, even though, as the Minister said, it has been somewhat belated in some cases. This is an important time for Europe. It is an opportune time for us to debate Europe in this House, because the European parliamentary election campaign is on in some cases and about to commence in others. We are only commencing ours this morning. But every person involved in the campaign will find the same problem: there is a great problem of indifference. John Citizen is not particularly interested, and he is not interested because he does not know.
I would entirely subscribe to the point made by Senator O'Toole that we must provide some fora in this State — ideally in this House— for our members of the European Parliament at least on occasions to come in to address at least this House if it is not permissible in the Dáil. We owe that to the electorate — not necessarily to the actual people themselves because they are able to afford to get media exposure and so on from time to time. The fact is that we have not convinced the people of this country that our future is in Europe, that we are linked totally and in a sizeable way to the European Parliament. Yet we find this indifference and difficulty, people saying "It is irrelevant to us". We see an occasional programme on television at 11 p.m. every second or third week. That is the extent of the national television network's commitment to Europe. The only time we ever see debates from Europe in the main news is when Mr. Paisley insults the Pope or something, when Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael members jump up to defend the Taoiseach or somebody else when Mr. Paisley launches one of his famous attacks. That is about the only time we see a relevant Irish debate taking place on the Floor of the European Parliament. That is no use to the European electorate in this forthcoming election.
We must make European politics relevant to the people of this country in the political context. It is extremely relevant to them already in that everything they do now is singularly affected. Every time the housewife goes to the shop, it is European packaging, European standards, European weights and so on. This development has taken place almost unknown to the Irish people, but in the political context they are still somewhat indifferent and blasé about the whole thing. I suspect we have failed them in that we have not got those communication lines open. We, as members of local authorities, complain that we cannot get access to Europe.
Quite often we have to go through the Department of Finance, the Department of the Environment and so on. Let us put ourselves in the position of the ordinary John Citizen. He has got access to nothing in Europe. He sees his MEP occasionally, if he is lucky. He is certainly seen every four or five years when there is an election. That is the first thing the public say. It is not at all fair to Members of the European Parliament, because of course they spend most of their time in Parliament or traversing back and forth, which in itself is a full time job. But it is incumbent upon us as a House of the Oireachtas to seriously examine how we can arrange to have a chain of communication opened between the Members of the European Parliament and the parliamentarians in this country. We in turn must complete the chain down to our own electors and to the public. We owe them that. We have failed along those lines; and this is one of the things that needs to be addressed if we are to make the political debates in Europe a reality going into the next decade.
I would like just to pick up on the point made by the last speaker and by Senator O'Toole with regard to creating a link between the Houses of the Oireachtas and the MEPs. I certainly would subscribe to the proposal that they should have some forum here, a place here where they could make contributions and answer questions. I would be particularly interested in, for instance, giving them an audience in the Seanad on specific questions. If all our MEPs were to be introduced in an open debate it would be difficult to control, but I think there should and could be some way whereby they could be asked to respond to a specific request.
To come to the debate in hand, I listened carefully to the Minister's speech and I was quite disappointed that at no point in the entire contribution was the role of women, the issue of equal opportunities for women, or the action programme for women mentioned at all for either of the two reports. I wonder is this confirming a total abdication on the part of the Government in regard to the activities concerning women's issues in the European Community.
What I am going to talk about in regard to the European Community is really what is not happening rather than what is happening. I am concerned about the lack of action, the almost total paralysis in the area of social policy and, particularly where it relates to women, to equal opportunity and positive action. Last month I attended a seminar in Toledo, Spain. It was part of that country's Presidency and one of their main seminars in the social affairs area. This seminar was an evaluation of Community policy on equal opportunities. It was aimed at reviewing the achievements and planning for the next action plan. Over the three days of the conference we had expert speakers on the topics of legislation, education, employment and sharing of family responsibilities. Delegates came from all member states. There were MEPs, MPs, trade unionists, educationalists, employer bodies, etc. At the outset the first day looked as if it was going to be a very productive event. However, I now doubt that it will have been anything more than just another very enjoyable, rather expensive, talking shop for about 400 interested people.
For a start, the new Commissioner, Mrs. Papendreou, on whom a lot of expectations have been put, I should say, was not present. She is a Social Affairs Commissioner. There are high hopes that she will give a new impetus to the push to action on the remaining draft directives of the current action programme. Her absence was noted; and, indeed, the person who deputised for her at the opening session expressed regret that he had to sit there instead of Mrs. Papendreou. All during the conference speakers showed frustration at the lack of action on equal opportunity. It was described as the poor relation in the social policy programme.
There was severe criticism of the watering down of directive proposals. Many said that anything of any relevance was butchered between the time it was proposed and the time it came to Council meetings — that there is an ever-widening gap between the commitments made and the action taken by the Council. Many speakers warned that there would be no more meaningful legislation, that little or nothing had come since the Community became twelve.
There are directives concerning women's legislation in a whole range of areas — women in self-employment, women in agriculture, parental leave, child care directives — that are filed away with no hope of implementation; and there is just no reaction to this. We have to consider this Community in action in the context of the past splendid record of worth-while initiatives that were developed for women in the seventies. We had specific demands on equal pay legislation, maternity leave and pay, equal treatment, social welfare equality etc. All of these were faithfully implemented, put in place in statute in our State.
Most people who are interested in this particular area would agree that without Europe the status of Irish women would now be very poor indeed. Even with the European obligation on this country there was some political baulking in both Governments in the seventies at implementing directives. Indeed, in the context of the great strides that were made in Ireland in the seventies, one can only look with some sympathy at the newer member states like Spain, Portugal and Greece where women's legislation would not have come up to par with the other countries like Germany, France, Italy and Ireland; and women will lose out because of the apathy and the disinterest in real action at the present time.
We have also to examine the lack of Community action in the context of the present position of women workers in member states. While there is fundamental legislation in place — and very welcome it is and very necessary it is — it is not the end of the story. There is a need to change attitudes to bring about new procedures with regard to child care, parental leave and equal sharing of family responsibilities. This is a very vital area that is being neglected. Just to indicate the importance of having what I want — a directive on child care and on the sharing of family responsibilities, the importance of which to women cannot be overstressed — I will just give an excerpt from Child Care and Equal Opportunities by Anne McKenna, which is a report of the child care facilities in this country. She writes, on page 17 under the heading “Impact of children on employment of mothers”:
The percentage drop in activity rates for women related to the number of children is 60%, 62%, 26% with one, two and three children respectively under 15 years with women in the age group 20-24 years. With the group 25-34 years, which includes twice as many women, the decline is 50%, 52%, 44% with one, two, three plus children respectively. We might say that approximately half of the employed married women leave the work force with the birth of each child. This is despite the right to the re-instatement of women after giving birth. In 1980 U.K. study by W. W. Daniel of the Policy Studies Institute showed that of those who intended to return to work but did not, 30% gave as their reasons that they had no one to look after the baby, with 5% stating that childcare was too expensive. 22% declared that now that the baby had arrived, they preferred to look after it themselves. The rest of the group gave reasons connected with work rather than home constraints, for example, unsuitable working hours or hours that did not fit in with their husband's working hours.
A 1983 Irish study showed that women interrupted their work mainly for reasons of pregnancy and childbearing (56%) rather than for reasons of becoming unemployed (8%). Of reasons given by married women for not looking for work, child care and other family responsibilities account for 78% as opposed to 6% for single women and 2% for married men. With the latter, ill health, physical disablement are major causes.
Those figures are very damning. What they are, in effect, saying is that, if society does not come to grips with helping women workers to cope with family responsibilities, mainly child care, the care of older relatives, the organisation of their home, the organisation of their working hours, then we are putting a serious impediment in the way of women who want to continue work and have lifetime careers. There is an obligation on the European Community to ensure that such barriers are removed.
There is still a great disparity of treatment in conditions between men and women in the workplace. Women workers tend to be found in greater numbers in the lower paid service jobs. Women are used as a cheap and temporary workforce to form the main block of part-time and contract workers and in all the EC countries they earn only a proportion of the male rate of pay. Above all, it is now clear that the lack of planning and policy in the area of childcare in all member states is the greatest deterrent to women workers. We just do not know in 1989 how the children of Europe are cared for. In this vital area, one which should be a fundamental one for all workers who are parents, the European Community has fallen down badly. Unless we have the matter of childcare taken seriously by the European Community structures we will never get the key to work possibilities for women. Child care is very basic to enabling women to pursue life-time careers equal to men.
We know there is a directive on parental leave and childcare in the Community agenda, but what hope has it? Very little, if we are to judge by developments in the recent past. What happens is that the proposals are drafted by the Commission. They are put out for debate and discussion, defined and amended. Eventually, they go to member states for consideration. In all this debate they get lost or sorely weakened. I propose that we need EC action on the remaining proposals for women in the last action plan. We need action on bringing in basic rights to child care for working parents. We need action to reduce the difference between men's and women's earnings. But to get these changes we must alert the policy communities in each State. By these I mean politicians, trade unionists, voluntary organisations and women's organisations. Because of the European bureaucracy — and it has been mentioned before by speakers this afternoon — the red tape, and the language difficulties, information does not percolate back to the grass roots. Therefore, there is no groundswell of opinion or of pressure for action. I question why the bigger organisations are not aware and are not reacting to this situation. Unless we have equal opportunities brought back into the mainstream instead of as they are now as a marginal issue, no further achievements in the area of women's opportunities can be expected.
It will take all the creative ability and political muscle available to pressure Community Government into meaningful action in the future. The regrettable thing, I have to say, is that in the last two years there has been a notable lack of interest in the affairs or the discussions and debates that happen behind the scenes in Brussels.
When I was in the Taoiseach's Department as Minister for Women's Affairs, my staff there made sure they were aware of what was happening in discussions and debates. When officials went to meetings we were briefed and we knew what came out of them. I am not saying that we could perform miracles and when there was a commitment in a particular Department not to co-operate or not to vote in favour, it took more than gentle persuasion to change minds. At least we monitored the discussion: we knew what was happening and we were able to feed that back to the interest groups who contacted us in the country.
It begs the question, what is happening now at Government level? Who is monitoring and who is aware of what the situation is regarding draft directives? I feel that an appeal could be made to women's organisations. I have written and asked the Council on the Status of Women, the ICA and some of the major women's organisations to ask questions to attempt to get information. I have even found it difficult to get information on these particular directives. Again, it begs the question why representatives of these organisations were not out in Toledo at the seminar. Until we can transcend that great gap in information and enable the organisations directly involved to find out what is happening at European negotiation level, there will not be any push. This happens to be the case not only in Ireland but in many other European countries as well.
Like my colleague who prefaced her remarks by confirming her enthusiasm for the right of audience of members of the European Parliament, I would like to share that enthusiasm. I should also, on this my first occasion to address the Seanad in the refurbished Chamber, hope that our stay here will be more than temporary in the current political atmosphere. It is particularly significant for me personally in that I am standing in the same House as my late father who served in this House with distinction for several years. Having waited a little over two years for that particular honour I have been savouring the experience.
Since the passing of the Single European Act there has been a quickening pace in the run up to 1992 and the completion of the internal market. From Ireland's point of view the prospects of a new era of prosperity into the nineties and beyond holds out hope for our people beleaguered by high unemployment, continuing emigration and poor infrastructure. However, the commendable economic policies adopted by this Government, coupled with the consensus in the country that our problems needed drastic surgery, has at least stabilised the massive burden of debt imposed on us by a mixture of poor administration, political instability and lack of wealth in the years since we joined the European Community. Indeed, when one talks about the national debt, because of the incisive policies and initiatives adopted by this Government, one would think in the market place that all our problems were solved, but as the Minister for Finance and his colleagues in Government have pointed out in recent weeks, we are only at the beginning of a long road to eventual financial solutions. The national debt, going on £25 billion now, is horrendous.
The national plan submitted by this Government to our European partners if implemented in full should give us the firm foundation to launch us into a new era of economic equality. The Minister of State in his address to the House dealt in great detail with the essential elements of the two reports before the House and took us through the Government's thinking and activity on a wide range of issues in his usual efficient manner. I intend to deal with three specific areas of the report in which I have a particular interest — the cultural impact on Ireland of 1992; external relations as they apply to Eastern Europe and some of the trouble spots of the world; and European political co-operation.
The Minister of State in his address referred to the new emphasis on the role of broadcasting and the audio-visual sector in general and a growing understanding of the potential of this sector to strengthen European culture in all its aspects, including the needs of minority languages, such as Irish. The decision to establish a committee on cultural affairs by the Council of Ministers in 1987 was a significant step. Since then, the European Community has moved to legislating for the protection of national cultures.
An initial decision not to impose quotas on the amount of foreign or non-European Community-originated television programming prompted me at the time to make representations to the Government pointing out that Ireland already enjoyed, through its national radio and television network, a high proportion of home-produced programmes and that the imposition of a quota would help and encourage independent film and programme makers, as well as RTE, rather than inhibit them. The argument used to oppose a quota inferred that Ireland and the United Kingdom — that country was particularly vociferous in its opposition to quotas — would be awash with subtitled programmes from our European partners, programmes that would not have general appeal and that it would somehow inhibit, hinder and interfere with the natural progression of home produced programming in Ireland.
I am pleased to note that in recent months the Council of Ministers have come out in favour of a 50 per cent European originated programming ideal for all member states, excluding news. While as an aspiration it does not have legislative backing, it is a positive move and one that should stimulate programme buyers across Europe to think European. For Ireland, these moves will have a positive impact. Irish programme makers will have greater opportunities to sell their wares on the European stage. The "Dal-las"-"Dynasty" syndrome and the flooding of the European market with transatlantic cultures so alien to our way of life will have been checked. There will always be a place for programmes such as "Dallas" and "Neighbours" and other soap operas, as they are called, on our TV schedule. Indeed, I am a fan of both programmes. However, for too long, all television channels, including ours, have been allowed to ignore the cultural and social values that make us distinctive and, in an Irish context, that gives us our separateness as a nation.
The reason for this influx of cheap programming is because it is cheap, not necessarily in terms of its production values. Indeed, American television programming and Australian TV programming coming on to our screens in recent years have the highest production values, values which many European stations are attempting to emulate. So, it is not really because these programmes are badly produced. The contrary is more accurate. It is because they are cheaper to buy in. For example, an hour of "Dallas" costs RTE about £1,000 while one hour of Glenroe would cost the station something in the region of £65,000. The ratio between the cost of buying in programmes from outside as against producing home programmes is quite remarkable. This is not confined to Ireland. As the populations get larger, the production costs go up. For example, in Britain the BBC recently stated that one hour of costume drama costs them something in the region of a quarter of a million pounds, whereas to buy in a programme relative to Ireland the cost is very small.
Therefore, lots of television stations around Europe buy lots of "Dallas" programmes and "Dynasty" and "Neighbours" and all the others. There is nothing wrong with that, but I would much prefer my children were exposed to one hour of "Glenroe" or some other programme reflecting the Irish ethos rather than an alien culture and values that, in some instances, would embarrass a sewer rat.
The whole question of our cultural identity is going to become more and more dominant as we go into the completion of the internal market and beyond 1992. Before we joined Europe, for years we decried the fact that we were being subjected to cross-Channel influences and it was not until RTE, in the last decade particularly, asserted themselves in the area of initiating a home programming policy that there was a very real prospect that this country, and certainly along the east coast, would have developed — I hate to use the word but in this context I think it is accurate — a West British attitude. Indeed, there was a time when it was suggested that there were people living in multi-channel land who unless they looked out the window were not sure whether they were in Nottingham or in Dublin.
In that context, I would hope that the Irish Government would continue to press for more substantial decision-making in the area of European-originated programming, mainly because it will help this country. I do not see why RTE or independent television programme makers cannot, with the help of financial institutions — the so-called cosponsorship concept, that has helped Channel 4 in Britain to succeed for example — initiate more programmes reflecting Irish life. Why can we not see more programmes telling us about our history, about the major personalities in our history? These programmes in turn could be sold, not only to our European partners but also to the burgeoning number of satellite TV channels that are literally about to explode all over Europe. TV has an insatiable appetite and it is not going to be quenched in the short term. We will see more and more regurgitation of programmes rather than new programmes on many of these satellite channels. It is in that context that I address my remarks to the Government and I hope they will encourage the concept of more European-originated programming.
I would like to turn now to external relations and to Ireland's newly-assumed role in European and world affairs. The decision to go it alone in the FalklandsMalvinas issue by the present Taoiseach in 1982 was, for me at least, and for many Irish people, a watershed in Ireland's growing maturity as a separate sovereign nation state. Of course Ireland has always enjoyed a status far beyond its size and power in all of the world fora in which it has participated since the foundation of the State. The imminence of our assuming the Presidency of the European Community in January next year and the importance placed on that period by the recent visit of President Gorbachev proves beyond doubt that Ireland has, in the words of Emmet, truly taken its place among the nations of the earth, albeit a sundered nation, but a nation nonetheless.
Ireland has taken the initiative or played an important support role in helping to diffuse many of the trouble spots around the world. We have spoken out against apartheid in South Africa, against the denial of self-determination to the people of Palestine and the de-stabilisation of Nicaragua and other Central American countries. It is all the more surprising therefore that the Minister of State in his address where he referred to all of the foregoing failed to make any reference to the gross abuse of human rights in Romania and Iran and the increasingly malevolent nature of the Khomeini regime in Iran.
I had occasion to visit Romania in 1981 as a representative of my party, Fianna Fáil, on foot of an official invitation from the Romanian Communist Party. Since then, I have continued to monitor conditions in that country, the cult and personality surrounding President Ceausescu has resulted in the systematic repression of all opposition, the economic policies pursued by the regime in Bucharest has resulted in the near-starvation of the population, especially in urban areas and in recent times, the decision to effectively wipe out the Hungarian minority through a programme of urbanisation cries out to civilised nations for justice. In recent days the Ceausescu regime, once courted by the West due to a perception that it was more liberal than any of its eastern European allies, has criticised European Community countries for interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign country. This is a spurious argument and a smokescreen for the continuance of barbaric behaviour against an enslaved people. I have read enough and seen enough of the pre-war appeasement of Nazi Germany and a subsequent holocaust in which six million Jews died just because nobody shouted "Stop", not to have a concern about what is happening in Romania, Iraq and Iran. I have visited former concentration camps in Dachau and Malthausen and looked at signs that say "Never Again", coming away in the full knowledge that repression, torture or systematic extinction of human beings can happen again and is happening in the case of Romania, a once-civilised country, in Iraq where the Kurdish ethnic minority are facing extinction by the most vile chemical weapons and in Iran where the leaders of that sad country have taken on the mantle of the Nazis in calling for the killing of innocent civilians. In all these instances, man's continuing inhumanity to man is evident. I believe it is time that Ireland shouted "Stop", that members of the international family of nations realised that they have certain responsibilities and obligations, one of which is to ensure that the people within its borders are entitled to the most basic human right of all — the right to life.
Lest anyone should think that I am ignoring the genocide in my own backyard, let the IRA, the UDR, the UVF and the British Army and all others contributing towards the theatre of war that is the Six Counties, take note.
Finally, may I refer to the concept of European political co-operation. Fears were expressed during the debate on the Single European Act some years ago that Ireland would be subsumed into a European political conglomerate and would disappear down some hole near Bonn. While sharing the fears of the anti-Europeans — because that is essentially what they are now — I believe that the Single European Act is a positive move for Ireland. I am not afraid of closer political co-operation. Indeed, Ireland for too long has been outside the mainstream of European political activity. Even yet, some Europeans fail to recognise Ireland as a separate sovereign entity due to our long and troubled history and our continuing unhappy relationship with England who for 800 years did to us what many of the countries I mentioned earlier are currently doing to their citizens. Consequently, it has only been through membership of the European Community that Ireland has been able to assert its separateness as a nation despite the best efforts of our nearest and more powerful neighbour on occasions to relegate us to the status of a colonial outpost.
We refer to ourselves as the new Europeans but in fact we are the oldest Europeans of all, a country that brought light to a darkened continent only in subsequent centuries to see that light extinguished and to be so cruelly isolated and oppressed. The burden of 800 years of such savagery is hard to throw off in a mere generation. Even yet there is too much of the tugging of the forelock and the feeling of inferiority that was engendered in us by our former colonial masters. However, in the last 30 years a new, vibrant, exciting Ireland has emerged. Our people are among the most educated in the world while the contribution Ireland is making in the field of music, the arts, sport, commerce and politics makes us the envy of much larger countries. Our Government's influence in the corridors of European power is far greater than we could ever achieve on our own. It is precisely because we enjoy this power that we can influence further political events.
I am not afraid of European political integration; I am not afraid of the implications of that move especially in the area of defence. If we are prepared to cede part of our sovereignty for the benefit of European economic unity then we can hardly refuse to co-operate in any future decisions that would directly affect the peace and harmony of that unity. The era of military power blocks is coming to an end. The Warsaw Pact and NATO are currently reassessing their raison d'être, both as a result of the post-war construction of Europe and the cold war era. West Germany is currently questioning the need for a new generation of nuclear weaponry. President Gorbachev has caught many of the cold war warriors, especially Mrs. Thatcher and the US military industrial complex, off guard with his arms control initiatives. These are to be welcomed and encouraged, as indeed is the whole concept of democratisation and glasnost in the Soviet Union and the effect it is having throughout Eastern European countries.
While I would need a crystal ball to predict the eventual outcome of the reappraisal of Europe in the Gorbachev era one thing is clear: the European Community increasingly will be required to take on the burden of its own defence and Ireland as part of the European Community will be part of that evolution. There is one prediction one can make with a certain degree of safety. The post-1992 Community would be greatly enlarged. Austria and Malta's applications for membership are imminent. Turkey has an application on the desk. However, I would hope that our Government would continue to encourage Turkey to speed up its democratisation process and eliminate violations of human rights, especially in its repression of the political opposition before pursuing its membership application.
The recent decision of the European Free Trade Association or EFTA countries to seek a closer relationship with Brussels leads one to believe that EFTA as a body may break up post-1992 with its constituent members seeking unilateral membership of an enlarged European Community.
Then there are our separated brethern in eastern Europe. Who would have believed at the beginning of this decade that Poland and Hungary, on the verge of political reforms that will bring full democracy to those countries, would, before the end of the millenium, became fully fledged members of the European Community? That idea is no longer farfetched.
Once again one can only applaud from this distance the efforts of the Hungarian people and the Polish people to implement democracy, to implement the type of institutions that we so jealously guard and protect in this country. In case that people may think that democracy is a nebulous thing, that like the air one cannot grab it, I cite this incident, a phone call I made to Warsaw earlier this year on a business matter convinced me that we as parliamentarians and our Government as part of the European Community should do everything in our power to ensure that the democratisation process be effectively implemented in Poland and other European countries. That phone call was to a gentleman who was not there at the time but his wife was, and at the end of the conversation I said: "We are thinking of you; we applaud the efforts of Solidarity and we hope that your dream and aspirations will be realised." It was just an off-the-cuff remark but sincerely meant from my side. The response from the lady was to break down and cry and to say through her tears: "Thank you". That brought home to me just how important our freedoms really are.
Before the end of the millenium the family of Twelve will have experience of seeing change and the expansion of its family to a community that will bear little relation to the European Community we joined in 1973. It is within that context that Ireland will assume an even greater role as an older and respected member. It is also an indication of why this Government has taken the initiative in submitting its massive £9 billion plan to our European partners. Without this massive injection of investment we could easily slip down the table and be cast in the role of a second-tier community member on the periphery of Europe, a nice place to visit perhaps, a place our school-leavers leave.
We owe it to future generations to take decisions today that will secure for our people the right to live and work in their own place, a right that since famine times, apart from a period in the seventies has been denied to so many in our diaspora around the world. I am excited about the initiatives taken by An Taoiseach and his Government in this regard and I am happy to support their efforts to pull Ireland into line with our European neighbours. Go raibh míle maith agat.
Ar dtús ba mhaith liom mo bhuíochas a chur in iúl do na Seanadóirí go léir a glac páirt san díospóireacht thábhachtach seo maidir le Forbairtí Comhphobail na hEorpa agus go háirithe are na tuarascálacha seo, 30 agus 31. Díospóireacht bhríomar a bhí ann agus thug sé deis dúinn go léir agus do na Seanadóirí á dtuairimí a nochtadh ar na hábhair seo.
I would like first to take the opportunity to thank the Senators from all sides of the House who have contributed to this debate on the 30th and 31st Reports on Developments in the European Communities. I think it is very apt that this debate should take place at this particular time, just some few short weeks before the European elections. I said in my contributions earlier that I would not confine myself to the two reports only, that it was an opportunity for us to review the situation in Europe and express our views on how we feel the Community should be steered over the coming years and particularly into the nineties and into the next century.
I agree with Senator Manning that the pattern of development in the Community has been rather sporadic. We have had periods of rapid development followed by periods of consolidation and then perhaps what might be called some uncertainty and indeed stagnation. We are now in a very dynamic period and with the elections to the European Parliament on 15 June it is appropriate to recall that a major impetus towards the Single European Act and a more integrated community came from the Spinelli Report which was adopted by the European Parliament in 1985. I must say that while I agree with Senator Manning's views in relation to the uncertainty, the periods of rapid development, periods of consolidation, and indeed stagnation and of course the period which we are experiencing now, this very dynamic period, I am somewhat surprised at his remarks on the European campaign. Phase 1 of the European campaign was a very high profile one, a very highly publicised information campaign led by the Taoiseach and the Minister for Industry and Commerce at the time. The intention was to ensure that the implications of 1992 were firmly embedded in the minds of our people. I believe that no one in the country should by now be unaware of the implications of 1992 and I think every opportunity has been given to them as a result of the steps taken in Phase 1 by the Taoiseach and the Minister for Industry and Commerce. We are now witnessing Phase 2. This involves a detailed sector study of the implications of the Single Market with the close involvement of the Governments and indeed both sides of industry. Phase 2 is certainly quieter than Phase 1 but this is because the necessary groundwork has been done in a very detailed and thorough way. The European office is there to assist all companies, whatever their size, to come to terms with the Single Market.
Regarding the question of education which was raised I would agree fully that young people must be prepared for the open market. Preparations are under way not least in language training. The Minister for Education recently launched an enhanced programme for language training in schools. All sides of the House agree on the importance of languages in Europe. We are in a Europe with a population of 320 million people. It is vitally important that full consideration be given to the teaching of continental languages at all levels in order to ensure that we can play our rightful role. One of the biggest handicaps we have is that all business is conducted through the medium of English. If the business were conducted through the medium of another language, whether it be French or German, there would have been tremendous onus on us over the decades since the foundation of the State to ensure that we had a knowledge of those languages. The mere fact of the matter that English is the trading language not alone in Europe but indeed throughout most of the world has left us with a handicap which we will certainly ensure that we can overcome.
References were made to peripherality and the cost of access to Europe. It is important to bear in mind that in a few short years, in the early nineties, we will be the only country not linked with mainland Europe after the completion of the channel tunnel. That in itself will cause problems for us, problems of access to Europe. Whether we are exporting finished goods or importing raw materials we must ensure that we can do it at a competitive price. If we are on the periphery and so far removed from the centre of Europe we must ensure that the proper steps are taken to make us competitive with our neighbours whether they be in the UK or in other parts of Europe, we must provide the right infrastructure for our exporters and our importers of raw materials in particular.
I would like to refer in particular to Senator O'Toole's and Senator O'Callaghan's comments in relation to the costs to the country of its relatively isolated peripheral position, particularly the cost of access to the European market and the need to develop our transport infrastructure. A major objective, if not the major objective, of concentrating Structural Funds on the least advantaged areas is to allow those peripheral countries like Ireland to update and expand our infrastructure to allow it to compete on equal terms with other member states in the completed market in 1992.
This aspect has been fully taken into account by the Government in the formulation of our national development plan in which the Government address in particular the need to expand and develop our transport infrastructure. It is not sufficient just to provide an excellent infrastructure within the country itself, we must ensure that our sea freight and our air freight is competitive. We must provide the proper harbour facilities for our sea freight and the proper facilities for our air freight. Being an island nation, to be cut off completely from the Community in the early nineties, we must ensure that the transport costs are comparable with the transport costs from other parts of the Community. It is also important to ensure that our goods can compete on a time scale with the UK and other countries. I believe with the advent of new modern ships plying to and from the Continent we can compete. I know that a number of companies in the country are adamant that even with the advent of the channel tunnel we will be in a position to compete cost wise and indeed time wise. It is important also to note that in the development plan the Government forwarded to the Commission in March of this year it is recommended that there would be an expenditure of some £200 million both on sea freight and on air freight. I believe the recommendation in relation to sea freight is some £65 million and air freight £135 million. I am quite confident that those in the private sector will respond favourably.
I do not wish to go into excessive detail. However I would refer the Senators to Chapter 3 of the development plan, pages 48 to 55, where there is a most comprehensive analysis of our proposed development measures in the transport sector. It refers to seaports, air channels and of course the roads infrastructure. I think if they refer to that it will certainly allay any fears they may have.
Senator McGowan said the importance of Europe was not fully recognised. I believe we fully recognise its importance to this country. If we did not join the Community in 1973 and if we decided to continue with trade barriers and a protectionist policy, I shudder to think where we would find ourselves today. Europe has been important to us. Being part of Europe is a two-way process. We have given our youth opportunities which they certainly would not have if we were not within the Community. We could not continue to protect our ailing industries by retaining the tariff barriers. Irish industries have performed exceptionally well. They have streamlined their operations and are in a position now to compete with the best. In order to ensure that we can do this, under the Delors plan the Structural Funds have been doubled in order to ensure that there is a levelling out and a levelling up as far as we are concerned and that further moneys will be made available to help us through these difficult years.
Cross-Border programmes have been mentioned. I have taken note of Senator McGowan's remarks in relation to cross-Border co-operation and I heartily endorse his sentiments. As he stated, cross-Border programmes are currently under active consideration and indeed have the blessing of the Government. The Commission in Brussels is fully aware of our interest and involvement in programmes with a cross-Border component.
Reference was made by all of the Senators to the importance of language training. I would like to reply to Senator Manning's inquiry regarding the Structural Fund assistance for language training. In this connection I am pleased to report that this aspect has been taken on board at Community level, and to no small extent due to Ireland's lobbying in the matter, the Commission has brought forward a most valuable new programme for a language entitled Lingua. This programme is particularly weighted in favour of the least favoured peripheral member states, including our own country. If British objections in the matter can be overcome, the Lingua programme will be funded to the tune of 250 million ecus for programmes to stimulate vocational training and language training in our schools. There are four main areas targeted for participation — measures to promote language training in schools, the promoting of language learning at university, vocational training for the work place and scholarship and exchange of language teachers. We are confident that we will be able to benefit to the fullest extent possible from this very innovative programme.
Senator O'Toole referred to the desirability of changing to driving to the right-hand side. I have nothing further to add to what the Minister for the Environment said in the Dáil on this topic some time ago. Despite the Senator's view that the Community would be enthusiastic to assist us to change, no such proposal has been put forward by the Commission and indeed I do not think there is any great demand for it in this country at this time. Of course, we must take into consideration the enormous costs that would be involved and more important than that the safety factor which would be involved. These considerations would make it very difficult to contemplate a change in the foreseeable future.
Comments were made in the areas of defence and security. These issues were fully ventilated in a debate in this House last month during which the Government's position was made absolutely clear and I have nothing further to add to that.
It has been suggested that the Government are not sufficiently open in their approach to developments in the European Community. No developments have taken place without thorough examination. The most important recent development, the Single European Act, was not ratified until after the people had accepted it in the Referendum which was necessary after the Crotty case. That was after a most exhaustive information campaign in which all political parties took a very prominent part. Not only the members of the Joint Committee on Secondary Legislation of the European Community but indeed all Members of the Oireachtas may participate in this joint committee. It scrutinises all measures required to implement EC directives. Of course, nothing that has been done affects the legislative supremacy of the Oireachtas.
Senator Fennell referred to women's rights and asked specifically whether there were any measures being taken by the Community which would affect women. I would like to assure the Senator and the House that the Minister for Labour keeps under very close review all aspects of measures pertaining to the working conditions of women, including discrimination. A draft Directive is making its way through the Council which is intended to shift the burden of proof in discrimination cases from the employee to the employer. There are many technical aspects to this Directive which must be considered and I am sure it will come to fruition in due course.
Senator Mooney referred to audio-visual broadcasting. I was interested to hear Senator Mooney's views on the need to foster and indeed to protect Europe's cultural identity in the face of vigorous competition from non-European countries. We can all identify with the concerns which Senator Mooney expressed and I can endorse his call for an increase in European-originated programmes.
In this context I might refer to the consistent position adopted by Ireland both at the European Community and the wider forum of the Council of Europe in favour of a European initiative in this regard. Senators will of course be aware of the directory front to which Senator Mooney referred in particular. Ireland has taken a view that Europe without frontiers should also refer to the broadcasting sector and we have therefore supported measures in both fora designed to promote transfrontier broadcasting. In this context I would remind Senators of the two most recent European Councils when the Taoiseach gave warm support to French proposals in this sector.
We consider that this should be a coherent and consistent policy and that this must be adopted at European level to ensure that all aspects of the audio-visual broadcasting sector are addressed. By this I mean not only regulatory aspects but also programme content, programme creation, technological aspects, including the further development and marketing of high definition TV, a project which Europe has developed in advance of Japan and the US.
Senator Mooney also referred to the violations of human rights and referred in particular to Iran. Last month in response to concern about developments the European Community suspended negotiations on a trade and co-operation agreement. This made it clear that the Community which is actively developing its relations with eastern European countries does not at the moment regard the Romanian Government as one with which it can have close relations. The mere fact that the European Community suspended negotiations on a trade and co-operation agreement with Romania is indicative of their concerns which were referred to by Senator Mooney.
The displeasure of the 12 member countries at Iranian attitudes has also been made clear particularly by the withdrawals of Ambassadors due to the affairs of some weeks ago.
This has been a most interesting and stimulating debate. The interest shown by the number of Senators who participated from all sides of the House is gratifying. I hope this augurs well for a vigorous approach to the European Parliament elections. I agree fully with those Senators who expressed fears of a certain degree of apathy in regard to the European elections. The reason for the degree of apathy is that the campaign started at an early date, much earlier than is normal for a campaign other than a European campaign. I am confident that all the political parties will ensure that over the next few weeks there will be no apathy and that all will play their rightful role in this campaign.
I also agree that a way should be found of involving members of the European Parliament in debate on Community matters and representatives of all parties should, with the co-operation of the Committee on Procedure and Privileges, seek a means of resolving this question. The European Parliament over the last number of years has received important new powers which it did not have heretofore because of the Single European Act. This confers an important new dimension on these elections. I would hope that Senators and all those involved in political life will encourage people to take an interest and participate in the European elections by casting their votes and reaffirming their commitment to the European Community.
Ba mhaith liom arís mo bhuíochas a ghabháil leis na Seanadóirí ó gach taobh den Teach a ghlac páirt san díospóireacht thábhachtach seo a thug deis dúinn ár dtuairimí a nochtú maidir leis an Chomhphobal agus go háirithe maidir leis na Forbairtí san Chomphobal i dTuarascálacha 30 agus 31.
Question put and agreed to.
The Seanad adjourned at 2.25 p.m. until 2 p.m. on Wednesday, 17 May 1989.