Micheál Martin
Question:4Deputy Micheál Martin asked the Taoiseach the details of the proposed interdepartmental committee on European engagements; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39474/11]
View answerTuesday, 17 January 2012
Questions (16)
Oral answers (38 contributions)
On taking office, the Government committed itself to restoring Ireland's standing as a respected and influential member of the European Union. We also set out specific commitments aimed at improving our engagement with Europe. The establishment of a new interdepartmental committee on EU engagement, to be chaired by the Minister of State with responsibility for European Affairs, Deputy Creighton, is one of a range of steps we are taking to bring the necessary drive and focus to the delivery of this commitment.
The committee's membership will include senior official representatives of all Departments, the Office of the Attorney General and the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel. The committee will maintain an overview of participation by Ministers in meetings of the Council and encourage closer engagement with the European Commission and the European Parliament. It will seek to support the engagement of the Oireachtas on EU affairs and promote initiatives to improve public awareness of the EU and the benefits to Ireland of our membership. The committee will examine our participation in the shaping of EU legislation from initial proposals to transposition into domestic law. It will have an important influence as Ireland prepares for the Presidency of the EU in the first six months of 2013.
I thank the Taoiseach for his reply. Has the committee met? If so, how many times? The reason I tabled the question is that during previous Question Times, the Taoiseach indicated that this committee would be a core part of the new role of his Department in overseeing European affairs. He also claimed that every Department would be given a clear national role in terms of its objectives in pushing the EU. This supposed diplomatic initiative, which was announced last March and re-announced repeatedly afterwards, was clearly no more than a line for the media. Questions are being asked about how serious the committee is and what impact it will have. Has the committee done work on the new fiscal treaty and the demands it will impose on Ireland? Has it prepared any studies of its impact or has it written position papers on the treaty? Drafts of the treaty have been published. Has the Government a position on any of the issues outlined in the drafts? What work has the committee done in this regard over the past number of months?
The committee has not met because it has not been set up yet. It is in the process of being set up. I spoke to the Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs, Deputy Creighton, before I came to the House. The first meeting will take place in the next couple of weeks. It is premature, therefore, to suggest that it should have prepared reports in regard to the fiscal compact and other issues. That work is being co-ordinated by the Second Secretary General of the Department of the Taoiseach. A great deal of technical work is being done and technical discussions are taking place between officials at a range of levels.
With regard to rebuilding our reputation, this has paid clear dividends in the diplomatic relations between Ireland and others not only within politics but outside because Ministers are required not only to attend European Council meetings but to have programmes around those meetings where they can meet and consult their colleagues, peers, working groups and so on in Europe. The interdepartmental committee will comprise senior officials of all Departments, the Office of the Attorney General and the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel. It will look to ensure Ministers engage to the maximum extent with their respective Councils.
It will encourage a closer relationship, at political and at official level, with the EU institutions, including the European Commission and the European Parliament. Often we discuss issues here without reference to what is happening in the Commission and in the European Parliament. It will promote the seeking of greater engagement at Oireachtas level in EU affairs. There is no reason we cannot have more regular interaction in the House about issues that are under discussion, be they legislative or whatever, at European Union level. It also will put forward a range of propositions for greater public awareness, both of the European Union and of the benefits to this country, not least in the context of an enormous workload which is building up for the 2013 EU Presidency, the first six months of which will be held by Ireland.
Can I ask a supplementary?
Another supplementary?
Did I ask one already?
The Deputy did. Go on, it is all right.
I think I had only one.
What is a supplementary between friends?
I only want to ask the Taoiseach if he can explain to the House why this committee has not met. The Government is nearly 12 months in office. I am genuinely shocked and taken aback at the fact that the committee has not met. We have been reminded time and again in this House of the gravity of the eurozone crisis and the enormous challenge facing Europe. Great Britain is staying out of a fiscal treaty, which was hurriedly agreed at the insistence of the German and French governments because of their domestic political agendas. It beggars belief that there has not been any interdepartmental response through this committee to the new fiscal compact treaty that, for instance, a position paper does not exist within the Department of Finance or the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform in terms of the implications of this treaty which, on my party's reading of it, would suggest an impact on fiscal policy for the next 15 years and beyond. This is shocking. It probably illustrates more than anything the degree to which-----
A question please.
-----what we have got from the Taoiseach on Europe - the so-called diplomatic initiative - has been nothing more than empty rhetoric, month after month. In reality, nothing is happening in terms of engagement with Europe from the Government. This is a straightforward issue - the establishment of an interdepartmental committee. The Taoiseach has now admitted, because of a question here today, that it has not even met in 12 months.
There is no need for Deputy Martin to be shocked.
Maybe there is not, given the Taoiseach's record to date.
The committee has not been set up yet. It will have its first meeting in the next couple of weeks or in early February. I would point out to the Deputy, as I stated already, that we have taken from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade the personnel who are working in the European division. We have appointed a Second Secretary General, a very able person, in the Department of the Taoiseach, who is now co-ordinating those activities. In the meantime, every Minister and Minister of State is seen to be required to attend to his or her duties to live up to his or her responsibilities in this matter.
This committee will be of considerable assistance and back-up to the work that is going on at European level-----
It has not met.
-----under that co-ordination. The work that we do, at the level of Taoiseach, Tánaiste, Minister for Finance, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform and every other Minister, in so far as the changes to the drafting of the proposed text for the treaty are concerned, is going on even as we speak.
The treaty is written.
This interdepartmental committee-----
The treaty is written.
-----has set out a range of functions and responsibilities for the committee.
The treaty is written.
That is important, both in terms of making Irish people aware of what is going on and for the Oireachtas to have a far greater input in terms of European Union affairs, Commission affairs and parliamentary affairs, and greater interaction between them.
The treaty is written. Does the Taoiseach accept that?
The text has not been adopted. The final text has not been presented for acceptance.
Come on, that is rhetoric.
As we speak, discussions are ongoing about that and there will be a number of meetings in that regard over the next fortnight. The treaty has not been defined yet.
The Taoiseach's answers were couched in the language of dialogue with the public and greater involvement of the Oireachtas etc. I could ask him 100 questions about all of that but-----
Please do not.
-----the Ceann Comhairle will not let me.
In his first response to the question, the Taoiseach did not mention the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. That struck me as rather strange. I wonder has the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Gilmore, become an abstentionist once again.
The Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade has led the charge here in respect of the diplomatic restoration of this country's reputation and status and has done a great deal of work in that regard.
The Taoiseach should call a halt to that.
This interdepartmental committee-----
That is empty rhetoric at this stage.
Would Deputy Martin give us a chance?
-----will be chaired by the Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs, Deputy Creighton. I have set out the terms and the nature of the work that will be conducted by that committee. It will be a powerful committee in the sense of providing a range of both information and proposals to enhance the work that is already taking place under the direction of the Second Secretary General co-ordinating European affairs.
Does that mean the European bit of foreign affairs has been taken off the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade?
Not at all. As I already set out in the terms of reference for the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, of course, the co-ordination of European affairs in so far as Councils are concerned is the responsibility of the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. The Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs has a specific remit in here. She will also chair this interdepartmental committee and is undertaking an enormous workload in respect of the preparations for the Presidency in the first half of 2013.