Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 24 Jun 1970

Vol. 247 No. 12

Membership of EEC: Motion (Resumed).

The following motion was moved by the Taoiseach on 24th June, 1970:

That Dáil Éireann takes note of the White Paper entitledMembership of the European Communities: Implications for Ireland.

Debate resumed on the following amendment:

To add at the end of the motion: "and urges the Government to ensure that the terms of membership to be negotiated adequately safeguard the interests of the people of Ireland."

—(Deputy Cosgrave.)

Dr. Thornley

I had little to add at the point at which the House rose last night. In fact, I have only three additional points to make. First of all, in summing up my own contribution, I want to make it quite clear to Deputies on both sides of the House that the reservations which I have expressed about the manner in which our application for entry to the EEC has been conducted, do not derive from any dyed-in-wool obscurantist attitude towards the EEC nor do they derive from any belief that the classic tariff barriers of protected industry can be sustained in the 1970s and the 1980s. I do not think that is so.

The Government are correct to reactivate our application for membership of the Common Market. They are correct to do so because, as has been pointed out by other Deputies in this debate, there is absolutely no alternative. I feel very strongly that, given the inescapable and perhaps regrettable fact that whatever the British do we have to do as well, we should approach the negotiations for entry with a degree of caution and frankness which has not been demonstrated by the Government over the past ten years since the topic first arose.

If I may revert again to the contribution made by Deputy Carter last night, he said to the House that the nub of Dr. Mansholt's policy, of which he appeared to express approval, was that it is better to plan for what is happening rather than to let events take their course. Unknowingly, perhaps, Deputy Carter was enunciating one of the finest and most clear-cut and crystal-clear idiomatic statements ever made in this House. It is better to plan for what is happening rather than to let events take their course. Enunciated there was a phrase or a sentence worthy of Sir Boyle Roche. Since the inevitable will happen it is better to appear to plan so that when one arrives at it, one can say one expected to arrive there. In this fine, rather unexpected epigrammatical way, Deputy Carter summed up the nature of Government planning on this as on many other issues. It is that if one is going to fall off a cliff it is best to have left behind a will saying one intended to do so in the first instance.

If this is planning all I can say is that it is not planning in conformity with any concept of economic planning that I have encountered in my life. Therefore, I ask the Government to remember that when it is conceptualising its attitude towards the inevitable it is dealing not with some bright future for everybody, in which there will be lots of joy and jam, but with a highly dangerous volatile situation in which the jobs of Irish workers and Irish farmers will be seriously affected.

May I say quite clearly that my own reservations—that is all that they are —about EEC are concerned with the mundane facts of the employment of Irish workers. In the seven or eight years since this issue was first enunciated I do not believe adequate preparations have been made to equip Irish industry to sustain its part in a competitive market. It may seem a small point to make here but in my own constituency of Dublin North West there are considerable industrial concentrations in Cabra and Finglas. Ordinary people work there, ordinary people living in small corporation houses doing their best to rear their children and give them a start in life. Already, under the influence of the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement some of these people have been affected and have lost their jobs. I have met these people who have been told at the age of 55 or 60 that £300 or £400 from the Minister for Labour is the most they can anticipate as a consequence of the workings of the free market.

I do not think we have the right to play ducks and drakes with the stability of employment of these ordinary people. I ask the Minister for External Affairs, to state at the conclusion of the debate what steps are being taken to guarantee the livelihood of these ordinary people. I accept that change is inevitable in the industrial sphere with the coming of free trade and the Common Market but what is not inevitable is that small people, ordinary workers, should be hurt. I see no evidence since the semi-demise of the CIO, and with the pathetic inadequacy of the ordinary payments now offered to redundant workers, that these people are being adequately prepared or catered for. They have their rights. They work in industries built up, I admit, under a Fianna Fáil administration, under the great—and I use the word deliberately—architect of protection in this country, the former Deputy Seán Lemass. If the Government are now to dismantle the protective barriers which for 30 years have given these people their livelihoods it should make quite clear to them what assurance it can give of the continuance of their employment.

It is a cliché to quote Connolly but my favourite dictum of Connolly's is: "Ireland without her people means nothing to me". I agree with that totally and I do not care if there is a fast buck for capitalism in this country; if the price of it is that the kind of people who live and work in my constituency can seek their job opportunities in Dusseldorf and Stuttgart in the future, it is not good enough. I have no doctrine, hard-line anti-Common Market attitude in saying that these people have a right to be protected.

A great question mark hangs over the jobs of Irish industrial workers in the city of Dublin and elsewhere. Will they be subjected to the kind of thing that will happen in the car assembly industry, for example? Will they find that the laws of private enterprise economics wipe out their livelihoods in the way car assembly will be wiped out, at no cost to the car assemblers, the owners of the firms, because they can look forward to a rosy future as distributors of assembled vehicles, for example, while their workers cannot look forward to this future? These are the small people that I am concerned with.

Good luck to the Government in its negotiations if it is prepared to dig in its heels in Europe and make quite clear that the minimum number of Irish workers will be made redundant by this step into Europe and that those who are made redundant will be adequately protected. I see no suggestion in the Government's euphoric me-tooism towards the British application to console me with the belief that these people will be looked after. I should prefer to see the Government go into EEC and admit the weakness of the Irish economy because I think its optimism and ambition in representing our economy as a developed one is dangerous to the livelihoods of Irish people.

The Treaty of Rome makes provision for developing—that is the polite word about our economy—economies. It should be the task of the Government to wring every possible concession related to the Irish situation out of EEC. If it has to admit the weaknesses of our economy in order to do this it would play a more honourable and a tactically more constructive role if it did admit these weaknesses. I see no suggestion that they are prepared to do this and while I bow to the inevitable, like Deputy Carter, I can neither glory in it nor describe it as a function of sophisticated planning.

This debate yet again, as so many other debates here have done, exposes the total lack on the Government side of a concept of what will constitute Ireland in the future. I return to what perhaps is one of my hobby horses, the thinking contained in the Buchanan Report. Is Ireland to be the kind of country envisaged in that report? Is it to be a kind of concentration based on a conurbation in Dublin and a couple of other regional development centres? Are we turning our back on the small farmer, on the small man in industry? Is God and Fianna Fáil—two concepts which are not always identical, although in this House it is frequently suggested that they are—on the side of the big battalions? Is this the kind of Ireland we are moving into? I see no sign in Government thinking on this matter that they have a concept of Ireland which they are prepared to defend in Europe. The Minister for Finance, sitting there rather weariedly listening to me, shares, I know, many of my aspirations for the small farmer and the small industry in Ireland, as he showed when he was in Industry and Commerce. Can he defend these people or offer them safeguards when we encounter this blast of free trade?

Let me say that I am not totally negative in my attitude to this proposition. The Common Market will undoubtedly present opportunities to Ireland: these opportunities can be grasped if our negotiations are advanced intelligently, if the appropriate safeguards are sought and if the appropriate incentives and disincentives are used to accelerate the pace of growth in Irish Industry. I should not like my contribution, which inevitably has had to concentrate on the dangers implicit in Government policy, to appear to have a hostile attitude to the entire concept of the European Economic Community—far from it. As I say, it is inevitable that we should enter this if Britain does and there are opportunities for us in it that I think might be usefully taken and, perhaps, opportunities of greater happiness and greater employment for the Irish people, particularly in agriculture. I have no hostility to the concept as such: all I say is that these opportunities will only be taken if the Government negotiate toughly and separately from the negotiators of Great Britain.

I see no suggestion in Government policy to date that they are prepared to do this. Consequently, I view the prospect of our entry with qualified misgiving. Let us accept the inevitable, but let us send over to Europe the kind of team which is concerned, first of all, not with the safeguarding of the profits of Irish industrialists but with the safeguarding of the job opportunities, security and happiness of ordinary Irish men and women who 30 years ago were told they were right to take employment in protected industries. Secondly, let us send over a team qualified in economic, professional and ideological terms to defend the interests of this nation. I do not think the tenor of the Government arguments or the quality of the rather ramshackle team which recent events have caused them to assemble suggest that that kind of bargaining which is needed by Ireland will take place.

Minister for Finance (Mr. Colley)

Anyone looking for a short definition of the European Economic Community will find it in Article 2 of the Treaty of Rome. That article says, and I quote:

The Community shall have as its task by setting up a Common Market and progressively approximating the economic policies of Member States, to promote throughout the Community an harmonious development of economic activities, a continuous and balanced expansion, an increase in stability, an accelerated raising of the standard of living and closer relations between Member States belonging to it.

These few words summarise the content and the purpose of the EEC: a single market which is designed to evolve into economic union and so lay the foundations of eventual political unification.

The detailed provisions of the Treaty of Rome have as their object the creation of a Common Market based on a customs union and the mapping out of the first steps towards economic union by means of the approximation of economic policies. The achievement of full economic union will require adaptations to the treaty, while political unification will, as the Taoiseach has pointed out, call for a further treaty which will be negotiated amongst the member states.

Therefore, the negotiations which are due to open on 30th June will be concerned with our participation in the Communities' Common Market and in the joint action being taken towards the approximation of economic policies. This participation will affect in varying degrees practically every aspect of our economy. Other Ministers will be speaking on those aspects which fall within their departmental responsibility. For my part I propose to deal, in the main, with those matters which are of direct concern to me as Minister for Finance.

I should like to deal first with tax matters. The fiscal and financial provisions of the Treaty of Rome have as their primary purpose the elimination of obstacles to the free movement of goods and the factors of production. As regards fiscal arrangements, the provisions of the Treaty are aimed at the elimination of protective elements in revenue duties and of any fiscal measures that interfere with the free play of competition. They also provide for the harmonisation of indirect taxes with a view to eliminating the necessity for countervailing import duties or export refunds on the goods affected.

The elimination of protective elements in revenue duties is a normal requirement of any free trade area or customs union arrangement. We are already in the process of removing our protective elements vis-à-vis Britain under the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement. Participation in the Community would involve the extension of this process to the other member states in addition to Britain.

The major development in regard to the harmonisation of indirect taxation is the Communities' agreement on the introduction of a common system of added value tax in all of the member states by 1st January, 1972, though the approximation of the rates of tax and the adoption of uniform exemptions will not be achieved until after that date.

As Deputies will be aware, the Government have had under consideration the introduction of an added value tax in replacement of our existing turnover and wholesale taxes. The introduction of an added value tax in place of the turnover and wholesale taxes would not necessarily mean a major change in our existing tax structure. However, harmonisation of Community rates of added value tax and excise taxes would be likely, in the longer term, to cause a change in the structure of our indirect taxation with the yield from the excise taxes diminishing somewhat in importance while receipts from the added value tax would form a greater proportion of the total.

Mr. O'Higgins

It will not affect direct taxation?

Mr. Colley

What will not affect it, the added value tax?

Mr. O'Higgins

The level of direct taxation.

Mr. Colley

What I am saying is it will change the emphasis from where it is at the moment, that is, on the excise taxes and so on, to, and create a greater dependence on, the added value tax which for this purpose will be substituted for our wholesale and turnover taxes. In other words, in the longer term, the harmonisation of rates will involve a greater dependence in our overall budgetary position on added value tax.

Mr. P. Belton

You will have to tax the farmers.

Mr. Colley

To some extent that is happening already under our existing turnover and wholesale taxes.

Mr. P. Belton

Very little.

Mr. Colley

I said "to some extent".

Mr. O'Higgins

The problem would really be that added value would have to supplement the loss of revenue from customs and excise as well as replacing turnover and wholesale taxes.

Mr. Colley

Yes, but I do not want to go too far or to conjecture on the rate at which one might expect harmonisation, and, as I have said, the question of harmonisation of the rate of added value tax is something that will not happen by 1st January, 1972; it will take some time.

Mr. O'Higgins

I always think "harmony" when used with taxation is not a very appropriate word.

Mr. Colley

It is the internationally used word and I do not propose to depart from it. Harmonisation of the major excise duties is also envisaged. This will entail the harmonisation of both the structures of the duties and the level of the tax. This is a very complex task and, while proposals have been put forward by the Commission for consideration by the Council of Ministers, it is quite impossible at this stage to estimate when harmonisation will be achieved. It is equally impossible to predict the consequences for Exchequer revenue in the absence of any indication as yet of the level of the harmonised rates both for value added tax and for excise duties.

As indicated in the White Paper, there is no provision in the Rome Treaty specifically directed towards the harmonisation of direct taxes. The working of the Common Market, however, has shown the need for action to bring about harmonisation of direct taxes. Differences in direct taxes as between member states of the Common Market can and indeed have hindered cross-frontier mergers or the operation by companies in one member state of subsidiaries or branches in another member state. For the purpose of reducing these obstacles the Community propose to have recourse to the articles of the treaty which require the approximation of such provisions imposed by law, regulation or administrative action in the member states as directly affect the operation of the Common Market. No decisions have as yet been taken by the Community under this head.

Apart from the question of harmonisation there is one aspect of the fiscal provisions of the Rome Treaty which is of particular interest to this country. I refer to the prohibition on the grant of reliefs from direct taxation in respect of exports to other member states except where approved by the Council for a limited period on a proposal by the Commission. Under present legislation, as the House is aware, our export tax reliefs are due to terminate in 1990 and their continuance in operation after our accession to the Communities is a matter which will be of considerable importance in the discussions in the course of our negotiations.

While I am on the subject of taxation I would like to follow up a point made by Deputy Cosgrave yesterday. He said that the United States tax laws treated Ireland as a less developed country and that this might conflict with our position in the EEC. This is not quite correct. In 1965 the United States terminated our designation as a less developed country for the purpose of the Interest Equalisation Tax. That is a tax designed to reduce capital outflow from the United States by penalising developed countries which raise capital in the United States. The United States foreign direct investment programme introduced in 1968 required United States subsidiaries abroad to repatriate portion of their earnings which would then become subject to United States tax. Under that programme Ireland was listed among the developed countries while stated less-developed countries were given special concessions.

I referred earlier to the provisions of the Rome Treaty directed towards the elimination of obstacles to the free movement of factors of production. Amongst these is the provision requiring the abolition, to the extent necessary to secure the proper functioning of the Common Market, of restrictions on the movement of capital belonging to persons resident in the member states. The progress made in this regard is set out in the White Paper and I do not propose to go over that ground. Our interest in this matter, of course, relates to the possible consequences for the inflow of capital to, and the outflow of capital from, this country. We have for many years lived with a situation in which there is free movement of capital between this country and other parts of the sterling area. We have little reason therefore to expect that the extending of the area of free movement is going to provoke any substantial outward movement of capital. Membership of the Community should, on the other hand, affect favourably the inward movement of investment capital. Externally financed industries oriented towards export markets have been quite a notable feature of our economy in recent years. One of the main attractions in bringing such industries here has undoubtedly been free access to the British market. This attraction will become more manifest with free access to the very much larger market represented by the enlarged Community.

I would like to turn now to the provisions of the treaty which, to repeat words I used earlier, attempt to map the first steps towards economic union. I propose then to go on to deal with the more ambitious plans being drawn up for the achievement of full economic and monetary union which, as I said, will require adaptations of the treaty. These two aspects formed the main part of my recent discussions in Brussels with Vice-President Barre the member of the Commission in charge of economic and monetary affairs. It will be clear from the White Paper that the provisions of the treaty do not proceed beyond consultation, collaboration and co-ordination in the fields of short term economic policy, medium term policy and monetary policy. The most notable achievement has been the adoption of arrangements for the grant of short term aid to member countries in currency or balance of payments difficulties. Particulars of this scheme are set out in the White Paper.

More recently proposals have been put forward by the Commission on arrangements for medium term aid under which a total of $2,000 million would be available for assisting member states. Both of these schemes are of interest to us. As a member we could have recourse to them if the need should arise. The right to benefit would of course carry the obligation to make a financial contribution to the scheme in the same way as we contribute to the International Monetary Fund in return for the right to draw from the fund if we should be in difficulties. The size of our contribution to the EEC schemes will be a matter for negotiation.

Notwithstanding the progress which has been made it has been found in practice that the provisions made in the Rome Treaty in the fields of economic and monetary policies are in certain important respects inadequate. For example, while the treaty lays down a detailed timetable for the achievement of the customs union, the specific requirements of member states in the field of economic and monetary policy are, as I said, confined to the obligation to consult on short term economic policy trends and to coordinate their economic policies for the purpose of ensuring the equilibrium of their balance of payments. In regard to short term economic policy, action at Community level can be taken only by the Council by unanimous vote, thus leaving any member state free to block the taking of any such action. The provision in relation to the balance of payments is in general even less exacting, being limited in the main to collaboration between the appropriate administrative departments of the various member states and their central banks.

This situation has led to the conclusion that the Community should be put in a position to take effective action to ensure stability and growth. The heads of State or Government at their meeting at The Hague last December, in the light of these considerations, agreed that a plan in stages should be worked out during 1970 in close collaboration with the Commission with a view to the creation of an economic and monetary union. Draft plans were put forward by the Commission as well as by some of the member States. These were considered by a working group set up under the chairmanship of M. Pierre Werner, Prime Minister and Finance Minister of Luxembourg, to prepare a report "containing an analysis of the various suggestions and making it possible to distinguish fundamental options in a step-by-step achievement of economic and monetary union of the Community".

The Werner Group duly reported and expressed itself as being in favour of the achievement of union by the end of the present decade. They set out headings under which, in their opinion, progress should be made in the first stage beginning in January, 1971 and lasting for three years. The report was considered by the Finance Ministers of the Six and later by the Council. The main lines of that report were accepted and the Werner Group was invited to continue its work and to present a final report next September.

While the group's report has not been published, information released by the Community indicates that its principal features are as follows:

(1) Economic and monetary union implies that the main economic policy decisions would be taken at Community level. This could eventually lead to the adoption of a single currency which would guarantee the irreversibility of the undertaking.

(2) The ultimate objective appears to be attainable in the course of this decade.

(3) The first stage should begin on 1st January, 1971 and be completed by a specified date. A period of three years is said to be suitable from the technical point of view.

(4) The first stage should include a tightening up of consultation procedures by methods which have yet to be determined. The budgetary policy of member States should be conducted in the light of the common objectives. Some degree of fiscal harmonisation must be introduced. Monetary and credit policies should be closely coordinated and the integration of financial markets stepped up.

(5) The Community should progressively adopt common standpoints in regard to monetary relations with non-member countries and international organisations. In particular, it should not avail itself in its exchange dealings between member countries of any provisions that might render the international exchange system more flexible.

(6) The starting point of the process should lie in carrying out the steps advocated in the Commission's memorandum to the Council of February, 1969 which is summarised at pages 68-70 of the White Paper. This would necessitate the adoption by the Council before the end of 1970 of decisions on medium-term, quantitative guidelines and on the introduction of medium-term financial aid.

(7) Between the point of departure and the point of arrival, action would have to be taken simultaneously and progressively on a number of fronts. Some of these measures would necessitate amending the Treaty of Rome. The present provisions however already permit substantial progress to be made.

This, in summary, we understand to be the substance of the Werner Report. There are two aspects of these far-reaching proposals which I should like to emphasise. First, the studies being undertaken have not as yet got beyond the preliminary stage. The Werner Group have been requested to continue their work and they have been invited to submit a final report next September. Secondly, the more fundamental changes in Community arrangements that would be involved in proceeding towards economic and monetary union would necessitate amendments to the Treaty of Rome. It is not possible at this stage to predict what these amendments would be or when they are likely to be adopted. Much will depend on the decisions yet to be taken and the kind of progression that may eventually be applied. Nonetheless, it is desirable that we in this country should form a view, if only provisionally of the aims of the Community in the matter of economic and monetary union.

As an open economy, heavily dependent on external trade, we have long experience of the extent to which the external economic environment can affect our economic well-being and the prospects for economic growth. Decisions by our principal trading partners, whether in relation to the short-term management of their economies, budgetary policies or medium-term objectives, can have major consequences for our economy. It is sometimes possible for us to adopt measures to avoid the worst consequences of decisions that are taken elsewhere but in many instances we have no option but to live with the external economic environment as we find it. We are not in a position to influence the decisions taken elsewhere which can have substantial repercussions on our own economic prospects.

Our position in relation to Britain strikingly illustrates the point I am making. Because of the large proportion of our external trade which is accounted for by exports to and imports from Britain, we are particularly sensitive to changes in the economic climate in that country. For instance, I do not think anyone doubts that our exports would have been higher in the past few years were it not for the various demand management measures our major trading partner felt constrained to take. I am speaking not only of measures which directly affect imports into Britin but also of measures designed to reduce the internal demand in that country.

Conversely, in conditions of inflation in Britain it is difficult for us to avoid the spread of these inflationary tendencies. It is true that there is provision in the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement for exchange of views on economic and financial policies but in the final analysis the decisions taken are within the discretion of the Government concerned.

The member States of the European Communities are becoming increasingly familiar with this kind of situation. In relation to one another there are now almost completely open economies. Because of the disappearance of barriers to trade and the introduction of the common agricultural policy, both of which have greatly increased the volume of intra-Community trade, the growing inter-dependence of their economies has limited the capacity of their Governments to shape the development of their respective economies in a way which would ensure the maximum utilisation of the resources of the Community as a whole. The consultation procedures heretofore available have not proved sufficient to overcome the shortcomings and the inescapable conclusion is that Community procedures must be enabled to evolve towards a stage at which effective co-ordination of economic policies can be guaranteed by means of decisions taken at Community level, measures which would ensure a stable and balanced growth of the Community as a whole. This is a proposition to which we can readily subscribe because of our experience in a situation similar to that which has emerged in the Community. It would, I think, be greatly to our advantage to have an external environment which would be stable and growth-oriented and in which we would have a voice in the major policy decisions which determine the economic climate of that environment.

There may be reservations in some quarters about some aspects of economic and monetary union—for example, the eventual freezing of currency parities within the Community and the possibility that economic and monetary union could have adverse effects on the less favoured regions of the Community.

As regards the fixing of par values, a monetary union of its nature presupposes some form of common currency. This common currency need not be expressed in the form of a common unit of account but can just as well be expressed in a number of different units provided that the value of each unit, one to the other, is fixed definitively and irrevocably. This has exactly the same effect as a common unit of account and this, of course, would rule out any possibility of devaluation or revaluation of a member state's currency in relation to the currencies of other member states. This consideration could be of importance if a country's costs were to go seriously out of line with those of its partners.

While there is likely to be some form of Community aid available to member states which get into balance of payments difficulties, nevertheless, the ultimate task of getting costs right will devolve on the member states themselves. In our case I think this underlines the necessity to stop the trend towards rising costs which has been such a noticeable feature of our economy over the past few years—that is, in effect, to work out and put into force a satisfactory policy on incomes and prices. Some Deputy may by chance remember that this was the main theme of my intervention in the Budget debate before I became Minister for Finance.

The other question concerns possible adverse effects on less favoured regions of the Community because of the danger that resources may gravitate towards the areas of highest economic activity in the Community. However, I do not consider this is likely to be the case. The Preamble to the Treaty of Rome expresses the aim of the member states to ensure the harmonious development of their economies by reducing the differences existing between the various regions.

If this were all we had to rely on I confess I would not be very happy, but I think we have a bit more than that on which to rely. We should remember that Ireland is not alone in being concerned with regional problems. The present member states and the other applicant countries all have regional difficulties, and some of them are much greater than those we experience here in Ireland. All of them share our view that, on balance, regional development is not merely a social or a political problem but is also a serious waste of valuable economic resources. On the basis of the performance of the Community to date in relation to regional problems I am satisfied that the development of an economic and monetary union will be accompanied by the development of regional policies sufficient to ensure a balanced development of the economies of the member states by the equitable redistribution of resources.

Before I conclude, there are two other aspects of the consequences of joining the European Community on which I should like to touch, since they are of particular interest to me as Minister for Finance. These are the direct financial obligations that we will incur and the effect on our cost of living. The financial implications of membership of the Community have been set out concisely in chapter 15 of the White Paper. In summary, the probable upper limit of our annual contribution, after the end of our transitional period, to the operational expenses of the EEC and Euratom is estimated at around £19 million. Due to the many uncertainties involved this estimate must be regarded as provisional, but it is unlikely to be exceeded. In the case of the Coal and Steel Community the imposition of the present rate of levy to the value of our production of steel and coal would involve an annual payment to the Community by Irish producers of about £20,000.

In addition, we would be required to pay contributions to the associated financial institutions, namely, the European Investment Bank and the European Development Fund. The amount of these contributions is a matter for negotiation and, as such, it is impossible to provide a firm estimate. The amount of our subscription to the capital of the bank might be of the order of £3 million to £4 million, of which one quarter would have to be paid up. Our annual contribution to the European Development Fund could possibly lie in the region of between £500,000 and £1 million.

These estimates represent the gross financial costs of membership. In return for these contributions we would be entitled to benefit from the resources of the Agricultural Fund and the European Social Fund on the same terms as the other member states. In addition, eligible investment projects here would have access to the resources of the European Investment Bank.

Receipts from the Agricultural Fund would arise under two headings: first, the guarantee section, which would cover the losses on our exports of agricultural produce to third countries as well as recouping the cost of intervention measures in support of prices on our home market and, secondly, the guidance section which would provide us with assistance towards the cost of appropriate structural improvement schemes in the agricultural sector. In balance of payments terms, there should be a substantial net gain when account is taken of the higher prices that would be obtainable for our agricultural products sold in the Community market. Receipts from other Community sources are difficult to estimate but there is no reason to expect that, on balance, we would be at any serious disadvantage.

So far as domestic budgetary financing is concerned there would, as indicated in the White Paper, be a substantial net gain from the termination of existing price supports and export subsidies. On the basis of expenditure in 1969-70, the saving would amount to at least £36 million a year.

Mr. O'Higgins

Is that just industrial?

Mr. Colley

No: this is agriculture.

Mr. O'Higgins

That is what I meant.

Mr. Colley

Yes, agriculture. One aspect of the implications of membership of the EEC, as set out in the White Paper, which has attracted naturally, some attention is the effect which membership would have on food prices and consequently on the consumer price index. The consequential increase have been estimated provisionally at 11 to 16 per cent for the retail price index for food and at from 3 to 4½ per cent for the consumer price index. It is very important that these increases should be set in their proper perspective and that the relevant facts of the situation are not ignored.

In the first place, it should be borne in mind that the increase would not come overnight but would be gradual and spread over the whole of the transitional period. Secondly, these increases, expressed as year to year changes, would not be out of line with increases which we have already experienced in the past. Thirdly, the increases will largely be the result of higher prices received by Irish farmers whose increased purchasing power should benefit other sectors of the economy.

I should like to stress that, of necessity, these estimates are tentative and, as such, should be treated with reserve. They are based on the present differentials between the EEC prices, on the one hand, and Irish or world prices, on the other hand, depending on the product in question. These differentials could well alter substantially before our accession to the Community.

Mr. O'Higgins

We are catching up fast.

Mr. Colley

I shall explain that in a minute. Obviously, if the differentials alter the estimates will alter. I am sure the Deputy will not object to this example if it develops. The favourable outlook for exports of cattle and beef which has been projected by the OECD could have the effect of narrowing the gap in cattle prices between this country and the EEC. If this should happen, the impact of EEC entry on our food prices would be reduced.

I have dealt with some of the more important strands that go to make up the picture which will emerge when we become members of the Community. This picture is necessarily imprecise in parts because much of the detail cannot be filled in until the negotiations are completed. At that stage, the Dáil and the public will have an opportunity of assessing, in the light of the results of those negotiations, the consequences for this country—an assessment which, I am sure, will confirm the correctness of the original decision by the Government to seek membership of the Community.

I have made it clear that I have been dealing in the main with such aspects of this matter as concern me directly as Minister for Finance. There are two other aspects of general interest on which I should like to comment. Reference has been made to this in the debate by other speakers and reference has been made to it in the past. However, I think it bears repeating because I do not think enough people grasp the significance of this point which has been made from both sides of the House. In the world of commerce and economics, to a very great extent your ability to decide your own destiny is dependent on your size and your economic strength. Consequently, for a small country like ours, which is economically weak in relation to most other countries with whom we deal, room to manoeuvre and to control our economic destiny, in economic terms, is extremely limited. Therefore, we, as such a small country, have a particular vested interest in becoming members of a Community which has built into it structures controlling the relationship between the members whether they are large and economically powerful or small and economically weak. From the economic point of view, one of the great attractions of membership of the EEC is that our economic relations, for instance, with Britain, our largest trading partner, will be governed in the main by rules, in which we have had a hand in the working out, applicable not only to the economic relationship between this country and Britain but also to the relationship between all the other members of the Community under an arrangement which is so weighted as to ensure that the smaller countries of the Community, acting together, and particularly with the support of the Commission, cannot be overborne by the larger countries acting together. This is a matter, in economic terms, of very great importance in my view. It is one which, looking back on our economic history, should commend itself to all Irish men and women.

There is one other general aspect of entry into the Community on which I want to comment and that is in the field of culture. While the Community appears to be concerned mainly with economic matters and while our assessment of the balance of advantages and disadvantages on entry, is calculated in economic terms, nevertheless we should not lose sight of the fact that, when the Community was originally set up, the reaction of the man in the street in the member countries was not based on economic considerations at all but was based on bitter experience of war between the member States and on a determination to ensure, so far as he could do it, that this would not happen again and on an instinctive feeling that the most effective way to ensure that such wars between the countries of Europe would not happen again was to integrate them so closely that it would be physically impossible for them to go to war against each other. It was on this basis that the peoples of the Six reacted to the proposal and only later did the various economic aspects come to assume in their minds the importance which they do now.

That underlying reason is important to them and it is important to us. It is one to which we subscribe, but there is a vision which will not be attained in the lifetime of anybody in this House, and that vision sees some kind of unification of the countries of Europe, not just economic, not just political, but also cultural. I want to stress that this nowhere envisages a cultural standardisation. All the evidence available shows that within the Community the greatest value is placed on diversity of culture.

In fact, I have had personal experience of meeting highly placed members of the Commission who had been to this country and whose reactions to visiting this country included a reaction of amazement at the attitude of some people here towards their own language and their own culture. I am laying some stress on this because I think it is of great importance and also for another reason to which I am about to refer in our own language.

Le déanaí chonnaic mé óráid ó Uachtarán Chonradh na Gaeilge ina ndubhairt sé go raibh an-bhaol don Ghaeilge san iarracht a bhí ar siúl againn fáil isteach sa Chomhargadh. Dubhairt sé go raibh an baol ann chomh mór sin go raibh sé de dhualgas ar Ghaeilgeoirí chur in aghaidh an fheachtais seo. Is rí-dheacair liomsa a thuiscint conas is féidir le héinne a bhfuil suim agus dúil aige sa Ghaeilge a cheapadh go mbeadh an Ghaeilge níos fearr as sa chás ina bhfuil sí i láthair na huaire agus sinn sáite idir an Bhreatain ar thaobh amháin agus na Stáit Aontaithe ar an dtaobh eile agus an Béarla ag brú isteach orainn ó gach taobh. Sa chás sin, conas is féidir le héinne a rá go mbeadh an Ghaeilge níos fearr as ná mar a bheadh sí nuair a bheadh díriú ar theangacha agus chultúir eile—díriú atá ar fáil do mhuintir na hÉireann nach bhfuil ar fáil ag cuid mhaith acu anois?

Dr. O'Donovan

An bhfuil an tAire chun an t-oileán seo a aistriú go dtí Mór-Roinn an hEorpa?

Mr. Colley

Ceapaim go gcuideoidh ballraíocht sa Chomhargadh go hánmhór leis an nGaeilge agus le cultúr na hÉireann a chothú.

Dr. O'Donovan

B'fhéidir é.

Mr. Colley

Creidim go láidir gur fíor é sin. Creidim chomh láidir sin é nach dtuigim cén fáth go ndubhairt Úachtarán Chonradh na Gaeilge an rud adubhairt sé le déanaí. An amhlaidh go raibh aidhm eile aige, aidhm phoiliticiúil, go bhfuil sé in aghaidh an fheachtais seo de bhárr cúrsaí poiliticiúla. Tá an ceart aige bheith ina aghaidh ar an mbonn sin.

Dr. O'Donovan

Níl aon eolas agamsa i dtaobh an ruda sin.

Mr. Colley

Ach má tá ceapaim nach cóir dó an argóint a úsáid go ndéanfadh ballraíocht den Chomhargadh donas do chúis na teanga. Im thuairimse, is fíor a mhalairt ar fad ach fiú muna bhfuil an ceart aige ní fheicim gur féidir le héinne a rá go mbeadh an teanga níos measa as agus sinn inár bhfuil den Chomhargadh ná mar atá sí anois ag féachaint don ionad ina bhfuilimid idir an Bhreatain agus na Stáit Aontaithe.

Pé scéal é, níor dhein mé aon iarracht dul isteach sna hargóintí uilig a bhaineas leis an gceist an-mhór seo do mhuintir na hÉireann ach nil amhras ar bith ormsa—agus ní raibh riamh—ná go bhfuil sé do leas cultúrtha, sóisialaigh agus eacnamaíochta na tíre go bhfaghaimis isteach sa Chomhargadh chomh luath agus is féidir linn.

Mr. Begley

Bhí áthas mór orm go raibh an tAire ag caint as Gaeilge mar gheall ar ár gcultúr ach, mar sin féin, cé go bhfuil an tAire ag tabhairt geallúna anso sa Teach caithfidh an Rialtas níos mó suim a chur sna Gaeltachtaí anois agus inár gcultúr. Is fíor go bhfuil na Gaeltachtaí— Ghaeltacht Dhún na nGall, Gaeltacht Chonamara, Gaeltacht Chiarraí agus an chuid do Chorcaigh atá fós sa Ghaeltacht—ag dul i laghad. Tá an Ghaeilge ón gcliabhán ag na daoine sna Gaeltachtaí úd agus níl a fhios agam cén fáth nár dhein an Rialtas aon iarracht chun na daoine sin a choimead sa Ghaeltacht. Anois tá an-sheans ag an Rialtas chun na Gaeltachtaí a choimead beo mar má bhíonn deireadh leis na Gaeltachtaí tá deireadh leis an nGaeilge.

Tá a theanga féin agus a chultúr féin ag gach tír so Chomhargadh. Teaspáinimis anois do mhuintir na hEorpa go bhfuil-teanga ag muintir na hÉireann agus go bhfuil ár gcultúr féin againn. Ba cheart don Rialtas níos mó airgead a chaitheamh ar mhuintir na Gaeltachta agus iad a ghríosadh agus a rá leo go mbeidh obair le fáil acu ina ndúthaigh féin. Ná tabharaimis le rá do na daoine a thiocfaidh inár ndiaidh, abair, faoi cheann 50, 60, 80 nó 100 bliain eile gur dhein an Dáil seo praiseach den Ghaeltacht agus de mhuintir na nGaeltachtaí.

Now that we are about to enter the Common Market it is imperative that the Government should re-vitalise the Gaeltachtaí if our Irish culture and traditions are to stay alive. For too long the Irish language has received only lip service. Tá seanfhocal ann: Ní chothaíonn na bréithre na bráithre. Is fíor an seanfhocal sin i dtaobh na Gaeltachta. They are becoming smaller year by year. Surveys carried out in Donegal, Connemara, Kerry, Cork and Waterford show, according to the last census report, that the population has been almost halved in some cases. Unless the Government take drastic action and make an intensive drive to help the Gaeltacht, I fear the future with Common Market pressures operating. The chairman of the Gaelic League said the Irish language was finished. I do not fully subscribe to his view: I think this is a challenging time for us, but he certainly has grounds for his misgivings.

Every country in the Common Market has its own language, traditions and culture. Will it be said by our future generations that the Nineteenth Dáil put the last nail in the coffin of the Irish language? This is a golden opportunity for the Government and everybody here to intensify aid to the Gaeltachta and the Irish language. If it is to survive it will need that. It is the one heritage of which we are all proud.

I shall only deal with two aspects of this debate. I have spoken on one; the other, which is very dear to me, is the fishing industry. One might think that if we join the Common Market the fishing industry will be seriously disrupted. Our negotiators must demand certain concessions is we are to preserve the livelihood of the 1,600 wholetime fishermen and about 3,500 part-time fishermen. In the White Paper published by the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries on page 136 the first paragraph states:

A common policy for fisheries has not yet been adopted in the Community.

What will happen? What kind of policy will be adopted? Will we have any say in it? What I say here today and anything the Minister may say will, it seems, be just guesswork, judging by that paragraph. I am worried. Are we entering the Community blindfolded so far as the fishing industry is concerned? On page 138, paragraph 17.6, of the same report it says:

The Commission's proposals have been under examination in the Community and at a meeting on 19th December, 1969, the Council of Ministers agreed that the necessary regulations concerning structures, common organisation of the markets and the trading system to be applied to non-member countries would be adopted before 30th April, 1970.

Can the Minister say what marketing systems or what trading structures were adopted on 30th April, 1970? I should be delighted if he would refer to this in his reply. I do not know whether these proposals were adopted or not but I should like to know and I am sure all the fishermen of the south, west and east coasts would like to know also. If a policy was adopted were there any negotiations beforehand with Ireland? Or are we being told now: "Take it or leave it."

These are the questions bothering the fishermen and, I am sure, Members of the House. So far as the fishing industry is concerned it is frightening to think that we must join the Common Market. The White Paper more or less supports that view because they say in paragraph 17.9:

If, as proposed by the Commission, fishing vessels of a member-State were given equal conditions of access to, and exploitation of, fishing grounds situated within the exclusive fishery limits of another State and were allowed to land direct into any port in the Community, serious problems could arise for Ireland's fisheries. The valuable inshore shell-fisheries and the herring fisheries off the south-east coast and Donegal already attract European boats and, if all member-States had full freedom to fish within the Irish fishery limits, not only would serious competition be created for Irish fishermen but our stocks could be irreparably damaged. However, the latter danger might be reduced by applying to all boats the present requirement whereby Irish registered boats over a certain size are precluded from fishing the inner three miles of the exclusive fishery limits.

It would seem from this paragraph that even the Department have certain misgivings about the whole fishing industry in regard to the Common Market. In my opinion that paragraph spells disaster for the fishing industry. Already we have complained at different times when we saw Russian, French or Spanish trawlers poaching within two miles of our bays or harbours and doing irreparable damage to fishing beds, giving no consideration to Irish fishermen. In fact, sometimes Spanish trawlers have cut across the nets of Irish fishermen and foreign fishermen have stolen the lobster pots of Irish fishermen. If they are to be given free access to Irish waters, where will the Irish fishermen stand?

I do not know if our Irish negotiators will be able to do this but they should strike a hard bargain in regard to our fisheries. We are not geared for this type of competition. We have neither the boats nor the technique. An Bord Iascaigh Mhara have failed miserably in regard to the fishing industry and there is no point in saying otherwise because facts speak for themselves when we have to import £2 million worth of fish every year. Where would we stand against the French, the Spaniards, the Dutch and the Russians? We would be competely lost. It would seem that An Bord Iascaigh Mhara are indirectly responsible because a number of years ago they opted out of the marketing of fish, which was a retrograde step.

I do not see any reference in this White Paper to boat building, which plays an important part in our way of life in the underdeveloped areas, in Donegal, Kerry, Castletownbere, Galway and Aran. I cannot understand why a responsible Department cannot see that these people will be directly affected by our entry into the Common Market. These boat yards would not be able to stand up to competition from French and Spanish trawlers. Boat building in our yards is nearly all manual labour; we have not the same machinery or technique as the foreign builders. I do not know whether, when this White Paper was being published, Bord Iascaigh Mhara were consulted, or was it some bright eyed civil servant in the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries who concocted this? If these boat yards go where are the fishermen to get their boats repaired? I would ask the Minister to ask the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries to submit to this House a short report of what effect entry into the Common Market will have on our boat building industry, especially when the majority of our boat yards are under Bord Iascaigh Mhara. People working in this industry have spent time learning their craft; it is their livelihood and they are entitled to know what is happening.

There is not much more I have to say except to appeal to the Minister to ensure that the negotiators who would be looking after Ireland's interests, particularly in relation to the fishing industry, will be good, hard bargainers, people who are familiar with the fishing industry, people who know the pitfalls and the mistakes which have been made in the past, in other words, a man of the people, a man who came up the hard way.

Bord Iascaigh Mhara should go around the country to the different ports and hold seminars or symposia, meet the fishermen, point out to them what is happening, assure them of security, if such assurance can be given, or, if not, tell them to go out of fishing and do something else. Now is the time to tell them. I am sorry for making such a depressing speech about the fishing industry, but it would seem that these people have more to fear than any other section if Ireland joins the EEC. It is only fair that they should be told well in advance what is expected of them and the targets which the Government will expect them to reach.

Dr. Gibbons

It is with some misgivings that I accepted the proposals to go into the Common Market. Looking back over our history and realising that it took so long to gain independence for a large part of our country and that we eventually propose to part with a certain amount of it, are the causes of my misgiving. Those of us who were brought up in the 1930s, at the time when it was pointed out to us that protection for our industries was so important, find it difficult to accept that over the years all this protection should be dismantled and that we should accept open competition in the world of commerce. However, 76 per cent of our exports find their way into the countries which will eventually consist of the Common Market, and this is a compelling factor we must face. If this market was withdrawn from us our economic situation would be a very difficult one.

One is inclined to draw one's similes from experience and for this reason I am inclined to compare our entry into the Common Market with the patient entering hospital. He does so reluctantly, with a certain amount of fear but also with the hope that the information and the advice which guides him there is reliable and the hope that after a time in hospital his health will be improved and he will be better able to deal with the conditions he meets in life afterwards.

Much has been said by other speakers about various aspects of our entry into the EEC. I do not intend to follow along that line but to limit myself to dealing with one aspect of it, that is, the regional policy of the EEC. It may seem petty or to be descending to parish pump politics to concentrate on an area part of which I represent, namely, the West of Ireland. It may seem out of proportion to be concerned about the fate of such a small number of people as 250,000 as against a Community of up to 250,000,000 people; but, like Deputy Begley, I believe there are very few of us who will concentrate on the problems of the very difficult areas in which we live.

Regional policy in the Common Market is reasonably well documented and they seem to have very clear views as to what they propose to do, to concentrate on the infrastructure of the areas concerned, on growth points and so on. They are prepared to discriminate to a certain extent in favour of the transport side. They say that financial help will be available to the under-priviledged areas, to areas with the potential for development, to undertakings which will be financially sound, and that this aid will be only temporary. To my mind, this contradiction is a fairly broad limitation and our negotiators must establish exactly how this is going to affect us in the less developed regions.

It is good to learn that they accept that location is not now the important thing but the development of an area. They seem to think that a skilled population is just as important as the infrastructure of the area. They also point out it is important that the people of the area will be fully involved in the activities going on there. They mention that to bring about this change may be difficult as people are difficult to change. They mention two aspects of this, one is geographical inertia, which I interpret to mean that communities may be so far from each other that they will find it difficult to develop their region, and the other they refer to as economic inertia, where people are lacking in education and in training. They also point out how important it is that the people would be involved in decision making in the particular region and, to some extent, in the financial decisions involved in the region.

Here there is a slight difference in our approach to our regional problems under this heading and it is one that should be examined before the negotiations come to their final form. Approaching this problem they divide the areas into three: industrial regions, semi-industrial regions and agricultural regions. Those are further divided into agricultural regions which may be able to get on with agricultural activities on the one end and on the other end areas which have no potential for agriculture. Unfortunately, certain parts of the West of Ireland could be put into this category. It emphasises how important it is that studies be made of the various aspects of the regions and that this information must be collated from the point of view of the number of people available, the number of jobs that will be produced, again going back to the question of the infrastructure. Here again is work which we will have to get down to doing pretty soon. We cannot wait until we get into the Common Market and then start to provide this information. On a number of occasions this particular aspect is emphasised. I am not fully qualified to say if such an exercise has taken place in west Donegal but if what the EEC is asking is comparable to what was done there it would want to be done much more rapidly than it was done there. It took about ten years to get that information collated.

Another aspect is that subsidies are out. In the EEC we will be depending on loans and on grants. Tax concessions on exports will not be acceptable. Here again is another situation in which we seem to be colliding with the policy of the Common Market. I understand that the object will be to invest public money in areas to try to create conditions and activities which will attract the private investor. The Minister has dealt with the sources for our money, the European Investment Bank, the Social Fund and the Agricultural Guarantee Fund. I gather we will benefit from those provided we are able to put up the conditions.

Applying all this to the West of Ireland the offer of financial aid seems to be very limited and we will have to decide how far our areas fit in with those. To ensure that the west is considered as soon as possible all the requisite information that can be gathered should be gathered. There are also areas which the EEC consider areas of urgency and they enumerate four of those. One is an area which is lagging because agriculture is the predominant industry in it. This must apply to a large part of Ireland. It would be true to say that under their classification no part of Ireland would be regarded as industrialised but only semi-industrialised. They also refer to areas which are lagging behind because their present economic structure is not keeping up with the times. A third and a vitally important one for us is what they describe as frontier regions which are lagging behind because they are on frontiers.

At once we can see an advantage in this. We can think of the association of Donegal and Derry and of Counties Sligo, Leitrim, Fermanagh, Monaghan and Cavan, all along the frontier, which could be developed as frontier areas. Here again it will be necessary to collect all necessary information to do this. Another point is that those problems will be reviewed yearly and I understand it will be open to the state concerned or the Commission to put forward particular areas for further development but it may happen that they will be referred to a regional committee. Those of us who know anything about bureaucracy can realise how slowly bureaucracy can move when it is quite convenient to us and we are entitled to ask how rapidly will it move when it is miles removed from us. This brings up the urgency of a problem which faces us pretty soon. When the Dáil has finished this debate and provided the Government have the authority to move further they must get down to doing all those things. The overall picture I can get of this is that those regional policies have, by and large, benefited regions at present in the EEC. I understand that they made a big improvement in Italy and if the same pattern is followed here we should benefit from it.

There seems to be a difference of opinion about how the pattern of support for industry which we have built up can be continued. I gather that Article 92 of the Rome Treaty states that the Commission may permit these subsidies to continue for a while. I also understand that Article 226 will allow certain aids to undeveloped areas to continue in the transitional period. I hope the Government will make full use of those opportunities which are open to us under those Articles. I still have a fear that the area in which I live may be classed as one of those areas that has no agricultural potential and this will impose a tremendous obligation on the developing authorities to ensure that their incomes are harmonised with those in the rest of the area which the EEC covers.

It is true that a start has been made because tourist and research activities are recommended, as are extra activities for schools and colleges and facilities for leisure for people who wish to move out of industrial areas. In Boyle there is some of this development; I think the area around Lough Key will be included and the same will apply to the Shannon area. Whatever Department is responsible for our wellbeing in the event of membership of the EEC must cater for such areas as I have mentioned. In fairness to the EEC, it must be stated that this matter is mentioned as requiring urgent action.

However, very seldom in the documents of the EEC is there reference to a problem which we constantly bring to the notice of our Government—the social aspect of development. I am glad to see that they give some attention to this matter and in a memorandum regarding regional policy in the Community it is stated:

Lastly, although ideally all aid should provide an incentive either to development or adaptation and conversion, it may prove necessary in specific areas to provide some support on purely social grounds; in instances of this kind, however, the principle that support should be confined to the time needed to introduce the changes which are urgently needed must be constantly borne in mind.

In this memorandum it is further stated:

The natural predilection towards the immediate economic calculation must be prevented from allowing too much importance to attach to existing structures and infrastructures, which are the main factors determining established conditions of competition. It must not be allowed to lead in the end, mainly because of the natural inclination of private interests, to a widening of the gap between areas which are well-equipped and those which are not or whose facilities are not adjusted to the needs of the modern economy. The authorities by introducing a number of cost items—notably items of social cost—and certain collective or individual objectives which cannot be given a market value into the economic calculation, should concentrate on the areas most lacking in economic, social and cultural facilities.

I read that with the hope that our negotiators will keep this paragraph in mind when they deal with such problems.

Other speakers have dealt with the question of our national identity. I believe this rests in our hands; if we are not able to preserve our identity among this group of nations, the fault is ours. Many people are worried about some of our industries but, if we are patriotic enough and conscious of our nationality and if we support our industries, they will survive.

With the minor reservations I have mentioned, I consider for economic reasons we must enter into the Common Market because if we stay outside the EEC we will have a most difficult time.

Mr. O'Higgins

It is good that every Member of this House has the opportunity of discussing and considering this problem which now faces us because the result will significantly affect our future. Somebody said yesterday that this might be regarded as a very historic discussion in the Dáil and this is not an overstatement. We are, in effect, discussing a decision which is going to have its effects on the future role of this country in Europe and in the world.

It is no harm to say that it is unfortunate this debate takes place at this juncture in our affairs. It is unfortunate that the debate should have come after the events that have disturbed our people in recent months, and all here should appreciate that our image in Europe at the moment leaves much to be desired. That has come about because of apparent irresponsibility in the Government, and by reason of many events, but when our Ministers negotiate in the weeks ahead they cannot speak in the same way as they might have spoken six or 12 months ago.

It is also unfortunate that these negotiations should be in the hands of a Government so obviously divided, so obviously bickering and warring among themselves, and it is a pity that at this historic moment the affairs of the nation are in the hands of men who do not trust themselves. It has been suggested it would have been in the interests of the people that in negotiations of such significance the Government should have sought a mandate from the people. However, that has not been done and the negotiations must proceed in the hands of the designated Ministers.

Everybody to whom they will speak will wonder for how long they will be entitled to continue the conversation. From my own experience in Brussels some two or three weeks ago I can say that that question was asked of me on several occasions. The only answer I could give was that I did not know how long the Government would last but, that if they fell, they would be replaced by a Government much more dedicated to the maintenance of law and order here than the Government it would succeed. I hope that information will be acceptable in Brussels and I hope that the harm that may have been done by recent events will not unduly weaken our position.

An Ceann Comhairle

That matter is not for discussion on this motion.

Mr. O'Higgins

What is not for discussion?

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy's remarks.

Mr. O'Higgins

I am discussing our negotiating position. I cannot imagine anything more relevant to the motion before the House and I propose to continue to discuss it. As I was saying, before the intervention by the Chair, it is unfortunate that our negotiating position should have been harmed or damaged in this way. I hope we will get over it. I hope that the interests of this country and the interests of our people will not suffer and that things which should not have happened will not cast any doubt on our position in Europe because we were regarded—I believe, fundamentally, we still are—as a sincere, democratic country, a country with a Constitution and a system of laws which give fair play and provide decent conditions for its citizens, a country that believes in the rule of law——

An Ceann Comhairle

What has this got to do with the motion before the House?

Mr. O'Higgins

It has to do with our negotiating position.

An Ceann Comhairle

It has nothing to do with it whatsoever and the Deputy is completely out of order.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

It is on our credibility in negotiating.

Mr. O'Higgins

I am concerned. We are negotiating for accession under the Treaty of Rome, the first condition of it being that Europe shall be a democratic state and that the European Community shall observe democratic institutions. That is a sine qua non. In so far as anything that may have happened here might suggest we were otherwise, I hope that all of us in this House can say there can be no such danger in that respect. Whoever may have erred, whatever mistakes may have been made, certainly either in the present Government or its successors there will be absolute adherence to the protection of democratic principles here in this State.

It is important, I think, that that should be said. It is unfortunate, as I say, that an atmosphere may have been created. I hope that that atmosphere will be dissipated and I hope that any area of doubt will disappear. Personally, I think it would have been much better that the Government conducting these negotiations would have been able to demonstrate clearly that it had a fresh mandate from the people but, if that cannot be achieved, then what is to be must be.

With regard to the whole question of Europe, I think Deputy Corish said yesterday that, in relation to Europe, people could be divided and Deputies could be divided into those who hope and those who fear. He put himself amongst those who fear. This is an understandable attitude and one with which one can have a considerable amount of sympathy. I should like to put myself amongst those who hope. I hope, in what I believe to be a rational manner, that in Europe this country can eventually fulfil a destiny that has been denied it over many hundreds of years. We are debating here as if we were faced with a free choice. I think it is right we should debate as if this were a free choice.

There are those who say, and they are entitled to say it, that we have no choice. I should like us to consider Europe on its merits. Even if we have no choice I should like this whole issue debated on the basis that we have because, for us, a choice in relation to matters of this kind may be to some extent a novel experience. One of our difficulties over many centuries has been the fact that, because of our size and because of our geographical position, we have not been able to command our own destiny. I believe there was a time, away back many hundreds of years ago, when people looked naturally and directly towards Europe, at a time when we had commercial intercourse and a free exchange of ideas with European peoples. All that came to an end after the reign of the first Elizabeth and, ever since then, for hundreds of years, we have been isolated from the European Continent. We have not been able to talk to or have any commerce of any kind with those living on the Continent. London has been our horizon, the source and centre of all power.

By reason of the growth of England, our small size and our geographical position we have been cast in the shadow of Britain. This has affected our outlook, our laws, our conventions, our rules, the things we do and why we do them. Of course, we struggled against it. We fought against it. We rebelled against it but, no matter how we struggled or how successful our efforts might have appeared from time to time, the awful logic of facts told against us. I am not talking now merely about political freedom. We fought for that, of course. We struggled for it. We achieved a measure of it for part of this island in 1922 due to the quiet perseverance of Arthur Griffith and the courage and ability of Michael Collins. We got political freedom, but the one thing that Griffith wanted, the thing that he desired above anything else, could not be attained: that was freedom of choice and freedom of action in economic matters.

Despite the advent of political freedom in 1922, we were still faced with the problem of economic dependence on Britain. That is not to say there is a country in the world—I do not believe there is—that can justly say it is independent economically of all others. Every nation, even most powerful nations such as the United States of America, depends on trade and commerce and, in that sense, has a certain amount of economic dependence. That can be a happy and a tolerable kind of dependence because it is a dependence on relations with many neighbouring States.

Our dependence over the years, by reason of the logic of the facts, has been a subservience. It has been the kind of dependence which we could not change no matter how we sought or tried to do it. We could have all the political freedom we wished to aspire to, we could have all the trappings, but we remained economically subservient to Britain. This is a thing worth saying because nowadays, and with recent events, the term republicanism, the true republican, and all this sort of thing, is thrown around the place—different places—as if it carried some kind of a special gift of wisdom.

We may have been as republican as Tone and as pure as Tone but the fact has been, over the years, that our political freedom was rendered absolutely nugatory by reason of our economic dependence. I believe we did struggle against this. The first Government of the State fought against it. Successive Fianna Fáil Governments fought against it. But we all know that the struggle ended and the fight was given up when the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement was signed.

Dr. O'Donovan

Hear, hear.

Mr. O'Higgins

That was the end of that fight. It was a concession made by the Fianna Fáil Republican Party that they were no longer going to endeavour to achieve any economic independence from Britain. That is worth recalling because there are fire-eating Republican Deputies going around these corridors these days as if they carried in their hearts the true spirit of Tone. These were the people who, in the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement, ended Griffith's struggle for economic independence from Britain.

An Ceann Comhairle

It does not seem to have any connection with the matter before the House.

Dr. O'Donovan

I think it is very closely relevant to it. It lies at the heart of it.

An Ceann Comhairle

The Chair has a good deal of patience.

Mr. O'Higgins

Tog bog é. It is good for all of us, even for saints in heaven. The Chair will see the relevance. The situation, as I said, is such that—in relation to our economic independence, the struggle to achieve it against the odds, and all the rest of it— that battle ended when this Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement was signed in January, 1965. Now, I should like to feel that we have a choice in this matter. I should like that this issue of going into Europe or staying out could be discussed freely here—as if we could act as any sovereign nation should be entitled to act, freely, in accordance with its interests, exercising a free choice. But have we that choice? Has this question not been decided for us entirely some five years ago when the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement was signed? Do I make myself relevant, a Cheann Comhairle?

Is this debate not unreal? The Fianna Fáil Government of the time ended Griffith's fight and struggle for economic independence. The Fianna Fáil Government at the time agreed to marry and merge our economy with that of Britain. The Fianna Fáil Government at the time entered into an irrevocable trade agreement with Britain itself. Under that agreement we, who were cast in Britain's shadow, we, comparatively owning a small and insignificant economy, were given over to the British economy, tied to it, bound to it, in such a way that never again could we seek to act—whether or not we had the power was another question —independently of Britain in relation to our commerce and our trade and the things we would do. Therefore, have we a free choice? Is this debate not entirely unreal? Was the decision not made at the time this agreement was signed by the members of the Fianna Fáil Republican Party?

I remember pointing out in the course of that debate that the only way that that Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement could be considered reasonably by Deputies in an Irish Parliament was on the basis that it was, in fact, a treaty or an arrangement for entry into Europe and it could not rationally be considered otherwise. I feel that that was the only defence for that agreement and it makes it absolutely relevant to our present position and our present discussion.

We are now proposing a new step. It has been proposed that we go into Europe. There are those who hope and those who fear. Those who fear—what do they fear? There will be challenges: we have got to face them. There will be difficulties: it would be a blind fool that would not see them. But what do people fear? Have we not had 500 years of subservience, of a menial role in the world; 500 years in which we have been cast into Britain's shadow; 500 years in which we have struggled and fought and eventually achieved political freedom but have not been able to act and select and elect, as free men and as a free country, in relation to economic matters? Do these people who say they have fears fear the eventual emergence of this country from perpetual dependence on Britain, because that is what is posed for us here? Europe gives us the chance and the opportunity of walking out from under that shadow and acting as a free nation, an independent nation, making our own choices, doing the things we wish to do in accordance with our size and comparative importance.

That is something which should cause us to hope. It should make us look forward rather than being despondent and fearful about it. I am glad to be one of those who hope that entry into Europe will enable us, under the Treaty of Rome, under the institutions that are there, and that I hope will grow and strengthen, to achieve a degree of economic independence in association with other countries.

There are others who fear. There are those who fear because they ask: "What will happen to our culture and our language, our music, and songs, and poetry?" They suggest that if we go into Europe these things will be swept away. Have they a right to fear, these people who express these doubts? Again, what do they fear? What do they want? Do they want us to continue from now until the end of time as some little appendage of Britain, existing in the sea of the great Anglo-American culture peddling, as the Americans would regard it, some quaint bizarre relic of ancient times with our own traditions and poetry and language? Is that what these people want?

If they had faith and hope, if they had any regard to Europe itself and any regard to the diversity of the national cultures that exist and have remained resilient over the years amongst the peoples in all parts of Europe, they would have no reason to fear. They should rather hope that, by getting out of our present circumscribed position, our culture would grow and flourish. The Flemish people have brought their language to a position of strength that could never have been dreamed of even ten years ago.

I do not see any case to be made by those who say they fear. I would not for a moment suggest that there are not dangers and problems and difficulties. Of course there are, but there are also opportunities, tremendous opportunities for a country like ours, an island people. We are compounded of many stocks that have come in from time to time but we are, nevertheless, an island people, a people bound together by the nature of our country. We are a young nation, a people with tremendous traditions and history. I am certain that the opportunities which Europe will give us, the widening of the horizons which Europe brings with it, the knowledge that London is not the end of the world, that there are other places, other capitals and other peoples, the knowledge that we can move freely across the seas that divide us to the Continent of Europe, the knowledge that we can trade freely, will have a tremendously exhilarating effect on our people.

We should not fear. The tragedy is that those who fear—and there are not many of them—unfortunately seem to misguide themselves into saying that they are acting in the interests of Irish nationalism, for instance, or the Irish language, for instance. In fact, they are advocating something diametrically opposed to Irish nationalism. Anyone who says we should not go into Europe is advocating the continuance of our dependence on Britain. That should be known and understood. Anyone who suggests that this is a step we should not take is a person who wants to maintain the status quo. For too many years we were England's cabbage plot, feeding the British people at prices they laid down and unable to do anything about it, expected to touch our forelocks and doff our caps when they were kind enough to buy our goods. Those who suggest that that should continue are certainly not entitled to say they are speaking in a patriotic or a national way. Perhaps the kindest thing to say is that they are misguided.

Very sincerely and, I hope, honestly, I can count myself amongst those who look to Europe with hope and who look to Europe as giving this small country some opportunity and some chance to play a significant role amongst some of the nations of the world. We can never completely control our own destiny by ourselves but we can at least play a part in a grouping or an association of nations whose destiny we can help to control. That is the opportunity that is being given to us.

If I am right in my approach we should consider very objectively and very honestly what kind of Europe will we see. On this score, unfortunately, over the years there has been, both here and in Britain, a very definite and well marked difference on the part of national leaders towards a full discussion of the implications of the European Economic Community.

First, I should like to give my view. In the first place this is not merely into a new trading partnership. I wonder do people understand that. This is not merely a trading pact. I wish we had said that oftener over the years so that there would be no possibility in our country today of people raising their eyebrows in surprise if one says: "Europe is not merely concerned with trading." It is not: we are about to join a great new political community; we are about to embark on the greatest adventure in our history.

The European idea, the idea of a United States of Europe was born of the ruins, the bloodshed and suffering of the last war. It came with the idealism of de Gasperri and Schuman and the great statesmen who emerged after the last war. This is to be a political community. It will be something new, a community aimed at ending disputes and rivalries that have caused so many wars and difficulties in the many centuries of European history. It is to be an association that will bring all these different peoples together to achieve something worthwhile. What that something is is implicit in every page of the Treaty of Rome.

The first aim is to bring this new community of peoples in Europe to direct their concerted efforts towards constantly improving the living and working conditions of their people and to reducing the differences existing between the various regions and mitigating the backwardness of the less favoured. One of the aims of the Treaty of Rome is to wage in Europe a war on poverty, to end a situation which has existed for so long, where the privileged held the underprivileged in subjection. That is one of the basic aims of the treaty. The effort is to be financed and made possible by the pooling of economic resources, by the elimination of trade barriers, by the investment in growth areas so that countries that pool their resources may produce and sell more and gain more wealth for the purpose of eliminating want, deprivation and poverty among European peoples.

The treaty goes on to indicate that it will be the aim of the Community also to extend its aid outside the frontiers of Europe to the needy undeveloped countries, to countries that require aid so that their peoples also can share in the growing wealth of Europe and the world. That is the aim of this new community—to assist other countries. It has a particular role which at the moment it is endeavouring to fulfil in regard to giving assistance on humanitarian and social grounds to undeveloped countries.

That is the Community we are asking ourselves is it wise to join. Perhaps, we are not free to discuss it; probably the truth is that this decision was taken four or five years ago. It is being taken on our behalf now in any event, but if we were free, should we not say that we certainly have no doubts, no illusions and that this is the kind of political community we should be proud to be associated with?

I should like to make one or two suggestions as to what might develop. While we are going into a Community that has been formed under the Treaty of Rome which has certain aims and objectives as set out in that treaty, we are going in at a time when the whole idea of Europe, as it will develop, is at a very early stage. We are going in at a time when there is a growing realisation that the Common Market is not the sum and the aim of the activities of the countries in the community. We are going in at a time when the political side of European co-operation is slowly coming to the fore so that we have the opportunity by going in now of putting our own mark, which may be slight and hard to see, on the kind of Europe that will eventually emerge. That is something worth considering, something important which we should bear in mind.

What should we look forward to? Certainly in this formative period after the enlargement we should in every way possible help in the creation of a democratic association of states, democratic in the sense that it will be representative of the views of the people, that these views will be expressed through strong institutions that will not be controlled by the whims and fancies of different people or different countries, that the institutions will be there and that they will be strong and protective and that the force of public opinion of the peoples of Europe will find expression through these institutions.

I have no doubt as to our position but I would hope we would do everything possible to mould the creation of a new Europe in the sense that it will be a democratic association of States. Secondly, I would hope that our membership would assist in the strengthening of the Community institutions. The institutions at the moment consist of the Commissions, the Council and the European Parliament. Their final shape has by no means been reached. We should fight for a European Parliament that is elected by direct universal suffrage. We should fight to ensure that that European Parliament—it has already been conceded that it will control the European budget as from 1975—will be in a position to exercise control over both the European Commission and the European Council. I think these objectives can be achieved under the Treaty of Rome, and certainly can be achieved by the agreement and understanding of the ten States.

There is a danger, to which Deputy Corish referred yesterday, that this new Europe would be stultified and strangled by the emergence of a European bureacracy. The dangers of it are there at the moment. They are easy to see and the only safeguard against bureacracy is the insistence on institutions which will function in such a way that they will express the opinions of the people and have the power to implement them. Therefore, we should look forward to seeing a European Parliament elected directly by universal suffrage amongst the peoples of the ten Member States, having control over the budget and exercising control over both the Commission and the Council.

Deputy Corish asked yesterday what does the European Parliament mean and said we shall have only ten members. That is not so. If the present proposals go through we shall have a membership of 30 in a Parliament of 640 or so, and 30 members representing the people of this country will be, I hope, 30 strong voices, and in any event there should be a sufficiently strong team to make our problems known and felt. However, it is important to remember that as things are moving now on the Council of Ministers under the areas covered by the Treaty of Rome, decisions can only be taken by a majority, and this would apply in the European Parliament also in relation to the matters which the Parliament will discuss. That means that as a small nation, provided the institutions are strong, our rights are preserved and guaranteed. No big nation can ignore us. No big nation will be entitled to give a direction. Decisions will come from the Council of Ministers on the basis of a majority vote. I have no doubt that in relation to many of the aims and difficulties we shall have common ground with others of the small countries and this will assist us.

Therefore, I would hope that we shall go into Europe determined to play a part in the Europe that will come after the enlargement, and determined that this will be a democratic Europe. If I use the term "United States of Europe" I do not want to suggest any parallel with the United States of America but merely to suggest an association of States in Europe, and to hope that this new Community will be democratic, that it will have high humanitarian ideals, that it will be concerned with what I have described as a war on poverty, the ending of the underprivileged condition of many peoples, and that it will seek to help developing countries outside Europe. I should also like to feel that the Europe which will arise will not be a self-satisfied Europe, that it will be concerned to bring in, as it grows and as time goes by, other European nations, so that eventually it can in truth represent all the peoples of Europe.

There are other matters such as regionalisation, and, of course, it is true that the harmonious development of all the areas inside Europe is very much part of the object of the Treaty of Rome. The particular difficulties we have in part of this island west of the Bann and west of the Shannon are undoubtedly problems which have been well known in Europe over the years and certainly the machinery will be there to deal with them. I believe a particular sympathy will be exercised towards us in relation to any such problems. It is not a matter that should unduly concern us. The aim is there, the machinery is there, and I have no doubt we shall get every assistance possible.

Reference has been made to association. Again, I accept that this is put forward bona fide; but, in my view, it does not bear examination. Association is like becoming a pavilion member: you are allowed just to watch other people play on the course; you pay your subscription but you cannot vote. This would be the worst possible position we could attain to. We would be involved in the aftermath of Europe without any rights, not even to be heard, except on the terms of our association treaty. We could play no part in the shape Europe is to take, no right of say and no right to vote.

I cannot see that a suggestion that we should become an associate member has anything to be said in its favour. It is much better if one is thinking of suggesting association to come out firmly and say: "No, we should not go in at all." That is more logical. Indeed, it might be better for us if we could freely discuss that alternative, if we could freely imagine the situation in which we may have the right— and when I say "right" I mean the exercisable right—of saying "No, we will stay out of Europe altogether", because then that could be discussed on its merits and we could see where we are going. Those who say we should stay out are advocating the end of any viability whatsoever in our community and in our economy. It is just something that is impossible to contemplate and I do not think it can really be discussed.

The fact is, by reason of decisions made on the free trade agreement some years ago by the Government, the choice was then made. We are now faced with the situation in which our market is going into Europe. Does anyone suggest that any prudent Irishman would stand by and allow a situation in which the door of that market would be closed in our faces? Of course, no one could rationally suggest that. Therefore, with our market going into Europe we go into Europe. My concern is not whether we go in but what we do when we are in, that when we are in Europe we should seek to play a positive role, that we should be proud to be one of the ten that will begin to build a new form of community amongst the people of this world, something that will be better than what was there before, something which will put warfare, bitterness and feuding behind, an association of states and a political association that will aim at bettering living standards, waging war on poverty and want.

That is something we can be proud to do and something which would make national effort here worthwhile. I have no hesitation in saying that we not only take note of the White Paper but we look forward to the conclusion of these negotiations, look forward to the opportunity that will be given to us eventually to enter Europe and, in coming to the decision to go into Europe, we are doing something worthwhile as true Irishmen on behalf of the country and of those who will come after us.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Let me begin by expressing agreement with that part of the previous speaker's remarks in which he regretted that this debate was taking place only after events which have impaired the credibility of our negotiatiors and which also to some extent have, perhaps, impaired the credibility of our continuing commitment to the democratic process at a time when our Government is seeking entry to a grouping, an organisation of democratic states. Let me express disagreement, at least in emphasis, with the previous speaker. Deputy O'Higgins criticised the leader of our party for having laid emphasis on fear in relation to what might come out in Common Market entry. Deputy O'Higgins himself emphasised, exclusively, hope. It seems to me that a rational mind might entertain both hope and fear as to the possibilities, opportunities, dangers and difficulties arising out of a possible future association with Europe or commitment to Europe.

I would agree that hope is in many ways a more attractive emotion than fear and we here did respond in considerable degree to Deputy O'Higgins's enthusiasm for the idea of our association with a wider body, breaking down this rather close association with Britain. Fear is less attractive obviously in many ways and yet it serves a purpose; it has a function for rational beings. Its function is to promote our self-preservation, our survival. It would be bad to give way to panic, to unreasonable fear, but it would also be wrong to dismiss fear from our minds. On the contrary, we should bring up the fears we have on such subjects and look at them and see how well founded they are. Deputy O'Higgins at one point seemed to cast doubt on the patriotism, even, it seemed to me, of those who were very wary, as we here are, and sceptical about these proposals.

Mr. O'Higgins

That was not intended.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

I fully accept that. Certainly, I would think that this is a subject on which patriotic people, that is to say, reasonable people who want to see only the good of Ireland and the benefit of Ireland emerge from all this, could sincerely differ as to whether entry would or would not be beneficial and that they can carry on rational dialogue together as, by and large, we are carrying it on here. It is very good that we should do so. I was a little disappointed at one feature of the previous speech. It was not for its enthusiasm for the Common Market idea, that I expect and that I can understand, but for its failure to criticise at all the manner in which the Government have approached these negotiations, the manner in which they may, perhaps, have already clinched these negotiations to a great extent, because that manner seems to me, among other things—it is not the only matter open to criticism—open to various kinds of serious criticism. It seems to me that by the style of their negotiations and, perhaps, especially by the way in which they have explained the progress of their negotiations and explained their ideas on this to the people, the Government have laid the foundations for a damn bad bargain and I shall try to explain what I mean by that.

I shall not say much about the purely economic aspects of this matter. I can lay no claim to economic expertise and I should prefer to listen to those Deputies who are well equipped to deal with these matters, including Deputy Keating, who will wind up the debate from our benches. There is one aspect on which I can claim some little knowledge and some experience. I have some knowledge of international negotiations and international bargaining, on behalf of Ireland and otherwise, at the United Nations inside and outside the western European group of States which exist there and in the old organisation for European Economic Cooperation in the forties and fifties. It is partly on the basis of such experience that I criticise the posture of negotiation and even a little post-negotiation into which we have managed to get ourselves.

I am not criticising the Department of External Affairs at official level on this matter. I think we are fortunate to have highly competent negotiators at what might be described, without depreciating it, a high technical level. The mistakes made were not made at that level but at the level of Government and what we wish to criticise are the actions of those who have taken and publicly proclaimed major policy decisions that have left us in a negotiating position of maximum weakness. There is some inbuilt structural weakness in our position, due to geographical location and economics, but to this has been added a considerable element of unnecessary weakness.

It is axiomatic in international affairs that a good negotiator values the limitations on his freedom of action. He does not minimise them, he does not stress the high hopes he may feel; on the contrary he is a rather dismal, negative person. He values the limitations because he knows how to use them, and if he does not know how to use them he should not be in his job. He knows that in negotiation it can be a position of strength to be able to say "We cannot do that; we might like to but we cannot. Our nation would not stand for it; it is contrary to what has been a settled policy with us." He does not sweep away any objections that may exist, he does not make light of them, but he brings them out clearly into the open. If the interlocutor is convinced that this is the case, that the negotiating country is in a genuine difficulty and has a very real inability to come to a certain point, since the interlocutor has also an interest in bringing the negotiations to fruition he is reasonably likely to respect such an argument and to concede the point. Certainly he will not concede his point if the other side concedes it in advance and gratuitously.

That principle of acknowledging limitations is a generally applicable principle of negotiation in international affairs and probably in other matters also. However, it is especially applicable to negotiations on behalf of poor and weak states, a category to which we, unfortunately, belong and which we must fully recognise. The rich and powerful may permit themselves the luxury of saying "I could do that but I will not" but for the poor and weak it may be more effective to say "I might like to do that but I cannot". That is putting the matter tactically, one might say, at a low level, but the tactics of negotiation are of vital importance. In the case of the forthcoming negotiations this importance has been overlooked to a quite remarkable extent.

The principle involved may also legitimately be expressed on a higher level in the formula that a good negotiator should have serious regard to the convictions and habits as well as the economic interests of his own people. He should make all these factors count as far as humanly possible at the negotiating table. A good negotiator is conciliatory but cautious, affable but never enthusiastic. Above all, he is never enthusiastic about what the other side has to offer; he leaves that to them and they can take care of that. A good negotiator does his negotiating first and his explaining later. He does not allow the process of negotiation to become confused with the process of explanation so that in elling to his own people the pothetic results of uncompleted negotiations he weakens his bargaining position in negotiations actually proceeding.

Our Government have ignored all these considerations. They have approached the delicate, complex question of Common Market entry with all the diplomatic subtlety of a bull going at a gate. Essentially and in substance what they have proclaimed to listening ears in Europe, as they proclaim it to our own public, is as follows—I simplify and clarify their language in this hypothetical quotation but I do not think I distort any part of the substance—"We, the Fianna Fáil Government, are crazy to get into the Common Market. We will say and do anything in order to get in. We are prepared to accept higher unemployment, combined with higher food prices, or at least hope for the best regarding these matters. We do not mind the devastation of a large part of our industry by European competition. We are prepared to give away anything if you will allow us in. For starters, we are ready to scrap our Constitution, our sovereignty and our neutrality. We give all this away without your even asking us. It is a proof of our sincerity and, if you want more proof, just ask us". That is essentially the negotiating posture of the Fianna Fáil Government.

Is it possible to imagine a worse picture? To approach the Common Market in that way is to ensure that our connection with the Community will be on the worst possible terms for ourselves and the most advantageous for European business. It is to ensure that our status within the Community will be the lowest possible, essentially that of a colony. It is to signal in advance our willingness to accept the worst conceivable ultimate consequences of Common Market involvement and there are—I would emphasise this in relation to what Deputy O'Higgins said—possible very bad consequences of such involvement. I think it is very unfortunate that the two main parties in this Chamber have agreed to brush these aside and not to look at them seriously. This policy means acquiescing in advance in turning our country into a playground for the rich of Europe while our population is forced to find work in the cities of the rich countries of Europe. I am not saying that entry into the Common Market would necessarily have that full result, but I am saying that the manner in which our Government have negotiated means that we agree to even that. There is a tendency in that direction already. Entry into the Common Market, if it did not achieve that final result, would certainly accelerate that tendency. Our Government's policy towards Common Market entry ensures that nothing will be done to check that acceleration and I think nothing is being done.

When we say that the Government have been guilty of gross and elementary bungling in their handling of this matter we are not saying that the choices before them were easy. Far from it. The fact is that there are very serious difficulties and dangers involved both in entry into the Common Market and in remaining out, or seeking association only, or some kind of special agreement, if Britain goes in. But the Government have been so panic-stricken at the thought of the second set of dangers that they have allowed themselves to speak and act in ways that lower our capability of response to the first set, our capability of response which is not so high that we can afford to lower it further. That is why we, on these benches, greatly regret the enthusiasm about the great adventure—those were Deputy O'Higgins's words—which has permeated this debate as far as the two other parties are concerned. Adventures are very interesting things but they do not necessarily have happy endings and a spirit of adventure is not, perhaps, the most appropriate quality in which to conduct diplomatic negotiations.

If our Government were to address the people frankly on this matter, which is not likely, I think that what they have to say would be very brief. If they do not mind me making another hypothetical speech for them, it would run as follows, or this is what I imagine them as saying, if they were being frank with the people, and I hope it will not be reported as my own words and ideas propria persona:“The economy of this country and that of Great Britain,” we can imagine them saying “have always been closely interrelated. We, in Fianna Fáil, once tried to achieve a degree of separation of the two economies and win for Ireland a measure of economic independence but we, in Fianna Fáil, gave up all that nonsense years ago and now, under the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement, we accept the fact that Ireland is simply a colonial appendage of the British economy. Consequently, if the British economy enters the Common Market we must enter it too. Conversely, if Britain stays out, we must stay out too. We have no choice in the matter and, since we have no choice in the matter, we can lay down or attempt to lay down no conditions. We have to take whatever is coming to us.” I am suggesting that that is the reality of the Fianna Fáil case.

Deputy O'Higgins also laid stress on this, especially from the point of view of the significance of the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement, and I certainly agree with much that he said on that. It is also true that there is rather more in this than just the Fianna Fáil case. It does involve a great deal of the harsh reality of our situation which we try to cover up in words which are flattering to our self-esteem or in ideas that light up the situation with a rosy glow. At the same time, I cannot go all the way with Deputy O'Higgins who looks at this matter in a deterministic manner. He thinks we have no free choice at all in this matter. I think that the limits of our choice are there, are close and narrow, but that, within those limits, we have certain freedoms, certain possibilities in negotiation, in bargaining, if we choose to use this and do not simply say that we have no choice, that we have to throw up our hands, and is it not great that this should be so, and what a great adventure we are forced to engage in?

Now, although that is, I believe, the reality of the Fianna Fáil position, that we are going in because Britain is going in and we do not have any choice, Fianna Fáil actual rhetoric as distinct from the realistic speeches I have been making for them, is, of course, quite different and I want to provide now a free specimen of that rhetoric. The chosen Fianna Fáil orator —I believe it was Senator Keery—at the official Fianna Fáil commemoration at Bodenstown of a Fianna Fáil Wolfe Tone discovered that Fianna Fáil's Common Market policy was Wolfe Tone's policy too. He said, as reported in the press—this is a real quote, not a hypothetical one: "We are applicants along with Britain for membership of the EEC"—and then the syntax seems to go wrong here but it is, perhaps, the press which is at fault—"and alongside which the moving story of Wolfe Tone's search for help from France to attempt to break off——"

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted, and 20 Members being present,

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

I was saying that the reality of Fianna Fáil policy on this is that we have got to go in if Britain goes in and that if Britain does not go in we cannot go in either. Fianna Fáil rhetoric is quite different from that. I shall give a rather fine specimen of that rhetoric. The chosen Fianna Fáil orator at the official Fianna Fáil commemoration at Bodenstown of a Fianna Fáil Wolfe Tone discovered, not altogether unpredictably, that Fianna Fáil's Common Market policy happened to be Wolfe Tone's policy, too. Senator Keery said, as reported in the Press:

We are applicants along with Britain for membership of the EEC and alongside which——

I do not quite get that bit in the speech but it is as it is reported——

——the moving story of Wolfe Tone's search for help from France to attempt to break off the connection with England may yet turn out to be an extraordinary parallel.

Mr. Power

What is wrong with it?

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

I agree with him that it is an extraordinary parallel. Extraordinary, indeed, it is to discover that Fianna Fáil aims to break the connection with England by following England into the Common Market. That is how it is to be done. Then we get Emmet's epitaph, I suppose, written after that. Of course, this speech served no particular purpose in relation to the Common Market but it did perhaps attempt to build a tenuous but necessary bridge between the two factions of Fianna Fáil present at Bodenstown —and that is one of the purposes of this kind of rhetoric.

I suggest that this kind of rhetoric has its dangers, too. Considering how important that famous extraordinary parallel would be if it were true, it might seem a little strange that the Taoiseach made no allusion to this method of breaking the connection with England in his opening of this debate. The fact is, of course, that the fiction that the Common Market will, in some way, end Partition—which I think is what Senator Keery was trying to imply and what other Fianna Fáil speakers in various contexts have tried to imply—is useful to the Fianna Fáil leadership both as a substitute for other ways of trying to end Partition, recommended by some of their wilder minds, and as a gimmick for selling the Common Market idea to Fianna Fáil followers who are suspicious of it. This whole idea is a mirage, an illusion.

The entity in whose wake Fianna Fáil want us to enter the Common Market is known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That is its official title in all international organisations, including the EEC, when it gets into that. That is the entity with which Ireland—if Britain and Ireland enter the Common Market—will be sitting on the different organs of the Community.

If we abolish through such association—if we are deemed to abolish it in some way—the separation between ourselves and Northern Ireland we shall also be abolishing the separation between ourselves and the rest of the United Kingdom. We could have ended Partition in that way at any time by simply re-entering the United Kingdom. The idea, which also figures in such verbiage, that we can end Partition by appealing to Europe, whether from outside or from inside the Common Market, is a dangerous illusion. If we either try to pursue or even pretend to pursue it—I think Fianna Fáil are just pretending to pursue it for purely domestic ends—we can only, by so doing, increase the fear and suspicion which at present bedevils Northern Ireland. That is what every speaker who talks in that way does and that is all he does.

Our real problem is not a territorial division, a frontier on a map: it is the division of our people, the deep and tragic division between the two main communities on this island. To talk about using the Common Market to end Partition can only deepen this division, can only increase the fears which find expression in Mr. Paisley's movement and in even more violent sectarain movements which exist in Northern Ireland. It can therefore only increase the danger in the North and the danger which can come from the North. We should make no mistake about this. If there is serious trouble in Northern Ireland, events have now ensured that it will be very difficult to prevent that trouble from spreading to our whole island.

Now, I am sure, on this point at least, the Taoiseach does not wish to increase the fear and the danger in that quarter: that he rather would like to seek to decrease it, to lower the tension and to cool the atmosphere. I would ask him therefore to discourage his followers from using the line, however tempting, that we can use the Common Market to bring about the ending of Partition. Perhaps I could mention this argument also, which might appeal to him, perhaps, more than to ourselves on these benches, that if our speakers here go up and down pedalling the gimmick that the Common Market can be used to end Partition—that, in some way, we can appeal, perhaps, to the Catholic powers who make up the Common Market and get behind England and get the North in— if this cry is taken up, as I think already it is being taken up to some extent by people of very different views in Northern Ireland, such as Mr. Paisley himself, and conveys itself also to the Powellite elements in the present ruling Tory Party which are close to Mr. Paisley, these remarks will make it more difficult for Britain herself to get into the Common Market. I think he at least ought to consider that point.

I would refer, in passing, to the references by the Minister for Finance to the Irish language and the putative effects of Common Market entry on that aspect of our national life. I do not share the apprehensions of the President of Connradh na Gaeilge to the effect that the Common Market would damage the cause of the Irish language. I think the Minister for Finance, Deputy Colley, has a right to regard that as unreal. I do not think we should foster unreal fears in this matter. I do not think there is any foundation for the Minister's idea that the cause of the Irish language would be helped because it would be taken out of our English language environment. Even if we enter the Common Market, we shall remain in the geographic position in which we are, in which we shall continue to be overwhelmingly exposed to the English language even if we make a little contact with French and German also.

Now, I should like to discuss two political issues, two major political issues——

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted, and 20 Members being present,

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

In the Roman Senate, if I recall rightly, the correct mode of address used to be "Conscript Fathers". I should like to apologise to the conscript TDs who are here by compulsion to listen to me. I should like to address myself now to two major political issues which arise, or have been made to arise, in connection with this matter. These are the issue of sovereignty, including the related question of constitutional amendment, and the issue of military commitment.

First on sovereignty. Some commentators and some Deputies, and some Senators I think, argue that this is an insignificant issue, or an irrelevant issue, and one which it is, perhaps, rather vulgar or trivial to insist on. I doubt whether the Irish people agree with that view, and it will become relevant to know if they do agree with it. I also doubt whether the people are prepared to go as far as the Government think desirable in the direction of abandonment or abdication of sovereignty. Possibly also there may be a few Deputies over on these benches who share that doubt.

Furthermore, I suspect that the Taoiseach may share these doubts or know of enough others who share them to have some misgivings about the matter. In this connection I notice that his opening statement here yesterday was rather surprisingly gingerly and tentative compared with some earlier and more ringing statements. I was also struck by his emphasis on the need for Opposition support, for an all-party element of approach to this question. I can remember well last summer how arrogantly the Taoiseach brushed aside any idea that an all-party approach could be valuable in relation to the unity of this country. He then simply described his own party, and it alone, as the party of reunification, the party with nothing to learn from anybody else.

On this issue he turns to us, he turns to the Opposition parties, and hopes that all the parties will go together on this. I do not think we can give him that satisfaction. The Taoiseach has argued that the transfer of sovereignty which will be involved in entering the EEC is not dissimilar to that involved in GATT or the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement. Theoretically that may even be true, but Mr. Lynch himself does not believe it. I am not guessing or imputing beliefs to him when I say he does not believe it. This is a matter of fact proved by Mr. Lynch's own actions in the Government.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Taoiseach.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

I am sorry I referred to the Taoiseach as Mr. Lynch. I wish to refer to him as the Taoiseach henceforth. The Government decided on the advice of the Attorney General that Common Market entry would require constitutional amendment, which was not the case with GATT or the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement. That is to say that entry into EEC, unlike entry into all the earlier agreements, is judged incompatible, apparently, with our sovereign status as defined by the Constitution. That is hardly an insignificant dissimilarity, as was suggested in part of the Taoiseach's discourse yesterday.

It appears from the White Paper that the Government are preparing to propose amendments to the Constitution, including an amendment to a most basic Article, an Article which some years back one would have thought immune from any intervening hand, Article 5, which simply states that Ireland is a sovereign, independent, democratic State. In short we appear to be preparing, not merely to limit the exercise of our sovereignty as we have done under other treaties, and as we might probably and legitimately do in an inter-European agreement from which we were convinced we would derive advantages corresponding to the limitation we were accepting, but to go much further than that.

The Government are preparing to jettison sovereignty altogether or, rather, they are preparing to do just that if the people will let them. The Government might be unwise to assume that that agreement will be automatically forthcoming when they ask for it. Some people, including some quite influential people, seem to think that sovereignty is merely a symbolic and sentimental conception, already out of date in this modern age, and suitable to be ignored by hard-headed and realistic people concerned with national economic advantage.

While I respect some of those who hold that view or something resembling it, I cannot help finding it a somewhat narrow, superficial and mechanical opinion and one which has its dangers. Sovereignty is important, not as a bare juridical concept or an antiquated piece of pedantry, but because of the living social commitment which it represents, the commitment of a people who have decided to work out their destiny together. Of course, this commitment is particularly important in the case of a country for which sovereignty is a comparatively recent and hard-won achievement. The Taoiseach has acknowledged that in his opening statement.

In these conditions, to abandon a sovereignty most solemly declared and set out in the fundamental law of the State by excising it from the Constitution, not just a limited exercise in the normal course of treaty-making, we suggest would be a most hazardous enterprise. It would be hazardous psychologically in that it would seem in the minds of many people—perhaps, not consciously formulated in that way—to constitute a kind of admission of national defeat and involve a lowering of national self-respect. It would constitute a kind of dispersal or dissolution of the nation in the terms in which the people have been accustomed and encouraged to think of the nation. No competent social psychologist would be likely to recommend putting a country like ours through a process like that. It would be precarious for all of us and this is an age in which the insights of social psychology, the psychological impacts of this kind of thing are coming to be appreciated in their relevance to human life. People who are thinking about society have come to realise that you cannot think purely in mechanical terms or narrow economic terms about what a society will take or can be asked to do. There are also psychological, spiritual factors which we ignore at our peril. It would be then, I suggest, precarious for all of us and there are some in our society whom such an action as the explicit, formal, almost contemptuous abandoning of sovereignty would drive to the verge of despair and, perhaps, beyond at great risk to them and also to the rest of us.

As a people we have attached a high value to symbols and to symbolic values such as sovereignty. The Fianna Fáil Party have never discouraged that propensity of ours, to say the least of it. They have played on it, lived on it, flourished on it; they are there because of it. They would be unwise now to discount its power in their case or to think that they can turn it off at will when it suits their book, or the book of some of them, since they no longer all share the same book. Some may think these considerations of social psychology and national psychology trivial and far-fetched compared with the hard reality of our need, as they conceive it, to get into the Common Market. But if our relationship with Europe is to be of any value to us it cannot be secured at the sacrifice of our identity.

To proclaim the abandonment of sovereignty would be a symbolic sacrifice of identity because sovereignty is the symbolic shell with which our identity has provided itself but it would also, at a more humdrum level, be a foolish move from a bargaining point of view since it would symbolise very dramatically our Government's willingness to give away absolutely any point on which they might be faced with any pressure at any time. By doing this we would be advertising in advance our willingness to accept colonial status in relation to the great powers of the Community. I believe our Government is willing to accept that status as it has already accepted a similar status in relation to Britain through the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement.

If entry into the Community requires us to amend Article 5 of the Constitution by eliminating sovereignty—we do not know whether it does or not; I think we do not even know exactly what is the Attorney General's advice on the point—if that is what we are asked to do we should advise the Community that we are not in a position to enter on such terms. We should then seriously examine which form of association or special agreement would best suit our special position and interests assuming the Common Market did take the line that we were required to sacrifice our sovereignty and amend our Constitution. I think this idea has emanated from the Government as one of the many gestures of submission and prostration which they think best to offer the Common Market rather than from the Common Market negotiators themselves. If I am mistaken on that point the Taoiseach when replying to the debate will no doubt correct me. If the Government, ignoring the views that have been expressed by members from these benches and by others throughout the country, should now go ahead with proposals to amend the Constitution in such a way as to sacrifice sovereignty, then we on these benches shall advise the people to vote "No" in that referendum in respect of such proposals.

Dr. O'Donovan

Hear, hear.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

We believe a great many people will take that advice in those circumstances.

The second major policy matter which I wish to discuss in connection with this motion—the two conceptions are linked—is that of military commitments. There was great confusion in the minds of what was the Government opposite, and there still is great confusion in the minds of the party over there, as to military commitments, military eventualities of one kind or another, so much so that we seem to find a drift on the part of one end of Fianna Fáil towards military alliance with Britain in a wider framework while the other end of Fianna Fáil is moving towards military collision with Great Britain. That is the degree of confusion reached there. I think this rather trigger-happy attitude towards military commitments in either sense is, perhaps, due to the fact that the present generation of that party has been brought up on tales of military glory but has in most cases at least itself never heard shots fired in anger. I think that the glamour of military commitments or at least the refusal to be properly cautious about the possible danger of such commitments is inclined to lapse in these circumstances.

Even the present Government, which are presumably less divided than their predecessor Government, have also spoken with two voices. The Taoiseach assured me in answer to questions on 23rd July, 1969, that it was not the Government's policy to enter into military commitments either by joining NATO or otherwise. Since then, however, the Minister for External Affairs has repeatedly said that we must be prepared to enter into military commitments for the defence of Europe as members of the EEC. The Taoiseach has corroborated that.

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted, and 20 Members being present,

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

I had mentioned that the Taoiseach assured me in answer to a question on 23rd July, 1969, that it was not the Government's policy to enter into military commitments either by joining NATO or otherwise. One would think that was explicit enough, that it ruled out any form of military commitment. "Otherwise" is a blanket word. Since then, however, the Minister for External Affairs has repeatedly said we must be prepared eventually to enter into military commitments—the "otherwise" is gone—for the defence of Europe as members of the EEC. The Taoiseach has corroborated that. One can only reconcile those various statements by concluding that the Government intend to do something which it is not their policy to do. If there is any other possible interpretation, no doubt the Taoiseach will inform me of it. These assurances—and this is the most serious aspect of the matter—preparing the way for the jettisoning of neutrality, seem to have been entirely gratuitous. No one asked us for them, as far as we know. It was just part of this general pattern of compulsive over-eagerness, of enthusiasm, of demonstrativeness, of slavering impatience to get at the fleshpots of the Common Market, if fleshpots there are for us. In fact, it was and is quite simply bad diplomacy and bad negotiation and missing what French diplomats call a good occasion to shut up.

It also involves, like the suggested amendments to the Constitution, a radical, brusque and almost contemptuous departure from principles which the Fianna Fáil Party themselves previously presented as sacred and taught to their young people as sacred, and which were accepted in all sincerity as such by great numbers of the Irish people and probably still are. Now these principles are casually and, as it seems, cynically thrown overboard. Thirty years ago the President, Mr. de Valera—and Fianna Fáil have not yet, as far as I know, explicitly denied the relevance of Mr. de Valera's past utterances to what they do to-day— said this:

A small State like Ireland, if it involves itself in war, risks the loss of everything, even its liberty. It should therefore avoid war if at all possible.

He went on to say:

The people of a reunited Ireland——

not the people of the Twenty-Six Counties, not Dáil Éireann, but the people of a reunited Ireland——

——must be left completely free to make whatever choice in peace and war they consider best. To take from them the right to make that choice would be in fact to deprive them of what is most precious in liberty.

That is what President de Valera thought about the matter, that if we did not leave the question of military commitments to the decision of the eventually reunited people of Ireland, we were depriving them of what was most precious in liberty. Strong language that, and Mr. de Valera, unlike some of his successors, was not in the habit of using strong language unless he thought strong language was called for.

Those words of Mr. de Valera in relation to this question of military commitments were uttered in time of war and, of course, in connection with the possibility of abandoning neutrality in that war. One may reasonably argue that that particular situation has passed away, that there are new forces on the scene. Yet the decision to maintain neutrality essentially on the same grounds as were then announced by Mr. de Valera was continued by the inter-Party Government after the second world war—but with the full approval and indeed, to a considerable extent, at the urging and under the pressure of Fianna Fáil—in the decision to remain neutral by keeping out of NATO.

Now it would appear that our Government are prepared to go into what is essentially a NATO European membership and to do so by an eventual side door but, of course, jettisoning the idea that only the people of a united Ireland will have the right to do that. If they jettison ideas like that, ideas which were formerly basic, they should frankly say they are doing that and explain why these former words of Mr. de Valera, this former decision in relation to NATO, is not relevant to them now.

Why should we abandon our neutrality now? The answers vary in emphasis and form. Last year when the Fianna Fáil Party were using a rather more militant and flamboyant rhetoric than they find appropriate to their present rather subdued position, the emphasis was this: the Taoiseach told us we could not be neutral in any war between what he called our Christian way of life and atheistic communism. I fail to see how this fits the pattern of past events, in particular the past decision not to join NATO. I wonder was communism any less atheistic or any less menacing in 1949-50 when Joseph Stalin held power in the Kremlin and when the Irish Government, with the full support of the present governing party, rejected an invitation to join the group of powers which was formed to resist what was then felt, and felt sincerely by many and for serious reason, to be a real and pressing threat from Soviet Russia. Since then that threat has receded, as would, I believe, be acknowledged by all the leaders of the NATO group. In the face of what seemed to many an urgent threat we used to emphasise our neutrality.

After the threat had been universally acknowledged to have been diminished, our Government last year struck that crusading posture. It is not a change that would be likely to win us many admirers, nor do I think this rhetoric either true or relevant. Wars are not fought between ways of life and ideologies. They are fought between organised groups of men on the orders of governments of states. It is not the Christian way of life which is using napalm against "communism" in Vietnam; it is the US army which is using it against Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. Bad governments, like other governments, some of them European governments with which we would be associated under these arrangements, have in the past sought to justify such action, as governments do, by the kind of rhetoric which the Taoiseach used. Many Christians of all denominations repudiated with horror the use of Christian language to justify such action.

In reality, of course, we find that that particular language, that very emphatic, high-flown crusading language has rather dropped away; it is not apparently suiting the needs of 26 County politics in 1970 as it did serve them so well in 1969 when they were using it very freely. But in reality, as is now admitted, neutrality is to be dropped not because of some new and urgent threat to our Christian way of life but because the Government deem it expedient to drop it in order to try to expedite access to the material advantages, as it seems to them, of the Common Market. Whether in fact it would be necessary to abandon neutrality in order to enter the Common Market is open to very serious doubt, as France's attitude to NATO would suggest. There is no necessary formal commitment in relation to EEC entry and France's policy would suggest that rather wider latitude exists for some members at least and could perhaps exist for others if they tried to gain some degree of latitude instead of expressing enthusiasm for anything that comes to them or that happens to them.

The Government's anxiety to ingratiate themselves with some members of the club is excessive and is probably found excessive by them. It does not augur well for what our relations with the other members of the club, if we are admitted, will be or what our general relations will be with our neighbours even if we are not admitted. If the Government show willingness to abandon neutrality as well as sovereignty in order to get into the Common Market it will be assumed we are willing to do anything and to accept anything in order to be allowed in and allowed to stay in. History does not suggest that people who exhibit such servile inclinations reap even material advantages.

What do we lose or risk by abandoning neutrality, as the Government effectively propose to do? There is a rather widespread impression that we lose or risk nothing, or virtually nothing. It is this impression indeed that accounted for the zeal of some at least of the new crusaders. Their impression is—and as it is very widespread it is therefore necessary to have a careful look at it—that commitment to a military alliance involves no extra risk in addition to that run by neutrals, since if there is a third world war after all we shall all be wiped out neutrals, belligerents, Christians and communists all together in one great holocaust and that therefore it does not matter if we enter into a military commitment or not, and that if it helps us to buy our way into the EEC then we should do it, as it means nothing anyway.

That is the real reasoning behind that. That is obviously true, the fact that neutrality or belligerence mean nothing. It is obviously true in the case of all-out thermonuclear world war. It is also true that in relation to such a war neither Ireland's neutrality nor Ireland's belligerency nor the Taoiseach's rhetoric can have any meaning at all. But there are other possibilities intermediate between peace and all-out war. It is in relation to those that the Government's intention to abandon neutrality, the Government's willingness to accept, apparently, any kind of military commitment in order to get into EEC, must be judged.

We can know little or nothing—and we here include our Government— about the real present and future calculations of the great powers—the only calculations that count—about war, semi-war and just short of war situations. We can learn, however, something about the kinds of calculation involved from the published writings of the politico-military games theorists employed by the Rand Corporation and other semi-official groups, or official groups, in America as well as in Europe. These sophisticated and highly influential people have thought in terms of graduated response and token retaliation as alternatives to the potentially suicidal doctrine formerly professed of massive retaliation. They calculate that if, say, the two super powers come into conflict, or if, say, Western Europe come into conflict with Eastern Europe, then they will be able to limit their involvement, deter their adversary and make credible their determination by inflicting severe but limited material damage on the other side.

This has a relevance to our position. It has a relevance to the propriety or wisdom from the point of view of a small country of putting our head into this kind of thing. If, for example, the Russians were to enter West Berlin the Americans or the Germans could "take out"—as the jargon goes—that is to say destroy, by nuclear bombing a Russian city of say 250,000 inhabitants, accepting in advance and making it known that they were accepting that the Russians would "take out" an American city of similar size. For obvious reasons these calculations are normally expressed in terms of direct relations between super powers or great groups of powers but that is a diplomatic distortion of reality.

The reality is that if the process of retaliation does begin—and God forbid that it ever should begin—it will begin not with the territories of the super powers themselves but with the territories of their allies, with their smallest allies first on the list. Specifically it is likely to begin with the territories of the smallest, least populous and least economically and militarily significant of these allies. It may be unlikely that it should happen but it is not impossible; these gentlemen are not paid the large retainers they receive in order to engage in idle imagining. Those who urge Ireland's entry into NATO or any other form of military commitment for us should ponder the implications of that thought as far as we are concerned.

There is no indication that they have engaged in any such reflection. I do not think they have thought about this matter at all except on these general lines that, if there is a war, we will all be in for it. That is the easiest thing to think and they are showing a certain tendency to think whatever is the easiest to think. If they did engage in reflection on it they would be forced to face the fact that, in relation to any exercise in token retaliation or graduated response, Ireland as an ally would be likely to present itself as suitable token fodder, suitable exchange territory for such a Warsaw Pact country as, say, Bulgaria. One side would destroy Sofia and the other Dublin. There would be a token exchange and then people would talk about peace.

Anyone who doubts the existence of that kind of calculation, minus the national identification, should read Herman Kahn's book Thinking about the Unthinkable. They should also inform themselves about the power, prestige and official connections of the Rand Corporation which employs Mr. Kahn precisely in order to make such calculations. If we do not take those calculations seriously we might literally be making the mistake of our lives.

Nor is it an answer to say that since the Six Counties of Northern Ireland are in NATO already the risk is there and would not be increased by our entry into Europe. Despite our protests, Northern Ireland is internationaly recognised as part of the United Kingdom—a major NATO ally. Under graduated response a major ally would suffer only after minimal retaliation on minor allies had been tried first. The Republic of Ireland, as a minor ally, would be in the front line of graduated response to warfare.

These are serious considerations both in relation to sovereignty and in relation to military commitments. They are related concepts and our Government have dealt with the realities involved in these matters with haste, frivolity and an unnecessary giving away of our position. The Labour Party are not against closer association with Europe. We appreciate the force of what can be said of the benefits we might derive from such association, but it must be under conditions that will provide at least minimum safeguards for our identity and survival which the Government are prepared to surrender.

I know that those of us who have criticised the Government for what they have done will be charged with subverting the national interest, with letting down the side. It will be claimed that we should all be on the side of the Government: if the Government are hopeful we should all express hope and, if the Government are enthusiastic, we should all join in the cheering. I regard that as a most superficial view. It should be useful to the Government if they are engaged in serious negotiation to be able to say "We have our critics at home. They will not allow us to get away with so many concessions." This would put the Government in a better bargaining position and it is very evident that the Government need to be put in a better bargaining position. The Government need to have their hands strengthened and responsible Opposition and responsible criticism can help to ensure that, or at least help us to move in that direction.

Much of the general criticism I have expressed would be valid from many different social viewpoints. A socialist party, like the Labour Party, have a special interest in retaining and strengthening our power to control the economy. We cannot, as some others can, simply acquiesce in leaving our destinies to the play of the forces of a dynamic European capitalist economy. As democrats, we are also concerned. The European Economic Community may wish to move towards a democratic constitution and if we were in it we might help the Community to move in that direction. Those are possibilities for the future. The reality for the present is that the Community is not an entirely democratic institution; it has strongly inbuilt bureaucratic features which might outgrow the democratic characteristics and, to that extent, would encroach on our own democratic institutions. It is not only a matter solely of protection, of holding what we have—although I agree our fears are legitimate in this area and we should look into them. In a more positive way, by ensuring the development of our capability, we could contribute much to Europe and the world.

In the past we have contributed quite a lot in proportion to our size and resources to the United Nations and to the peace-keeping activities of that organisation. This country's Army has made a contribution of which we can be proud to peace-keeping operations in Africa, the Middle East and in Cyprus and some of our soldiers have lost their lives on such missions. We are available for such activity: we can contribute to it and also contribute to the relaxation of international tension, as did a former Fianna Fáil Minister for External Affairs, Deputy Aiken. We should not boast about what we can do because it is marginal, but it is not insignificant in itself. It is valuable as work for peace and it is also of value to ourselves and to our concept of our place in the world.

Our capability in this respect would be lost if we were to sink our identity, as the Government so easily proposes to do, in this rich man's club which is regarded with a considerable amount of suspicion throughout the poor areas of the world. As a country that maintained its identity we would be of far more value to Europe than by simply sacrificing our identity and coming into Europe as a vague region with no sovereignty, no character and no consistency in our professions or our words.

General de Gaulle spoke of L'Europe des patries—a Europe of countries. It is an emphasis on which we should ponder—that Europe should consist of countries with discernible characters, not fractions. The kind of sacrifice the Government have gratuitously proposed would deprive our country of its identity, of its consistency and of its self-respect. The Government have been handling this country as a kind of fief, an object they control and dispose of at will. They have grown into that bad habit through years in office and through the peculiar corporate smugness that has been the product of their long and often self-righteous history.

Such a position is a bad basis for negotiation. If our Government are to win respect from their interlocutors in Europe, Britain and elsewhere they must show in negotiations, in their preparations and explanations, a skill which they have not shown so far and also respect not only for their interlocutors but for the opinions of their own people. They must respect the intellectual capacity and convictions of their own people and this they have not done. It may be fortunate that in relation to some aspects at least the people have the constitutional authority to ensure respect for their will and I believe they will do so.

Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries (Mr. J. Gibbons)

I have been listening to the last speaker for more than an hour and, in all that time, I was trying to determine in my mind whether he was in general in favour of this country's accession to the EEC or whether he was not. In the end, in the last five minutes of his speech, I think I would be safe in saying that, after all that long speech, Deputy Cruise-O'Brien does seem to be, with many reservations, in favour of our participation in the Europe that is envisaged in the Rome Treaty.

Deputy Cruise-O'Brien gave us a long dissertation on the disillusion of the nation, on the importance of symbolism, on the sacrifice of identity, and a quotation from President de Valera, of 30 years standing, concerning—

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Do they wear out after that time?

Mr. J. Gibbons

I am merely referring to it. I will come back to it in a minute. President de Valera spoke about the right of the people to determine and to choose their own course: that is the quotation allegedly from President de Valera.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

The Minister does not recognise it?

Mr. J. Gibbons

Many of the headings I have mentioned would provide ample material for a Deputy of Deputy Cruise-O'Brien's eloquence and ability and I have no doubt at all that Deputy Cruise-O'Brien could talk about symbolism for four hours, if he wanted to——

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Delighted to.

Mr. J. Gibbons

——or five hours. He talked about the disillusion of the nation and the sacrifice of identity. I think Deputy Cruise-O'Brien missed the really important point in all this and this is where I come back to the quotation from President de Valera. Of course, it is the right of the people to determine which will be their course. Of course, this right will be afforded to them and it is they, and they alone, who will decide the direction in which this nation will go in relation to our course in the EEC.

I want to say to Deputy Cruise-O'Brien now that I do not for a minute accept that our nation consists of a collection of symbols of any particular kind and I do not accept for a minute that our identity as a nation is in any way endangered by our participation in the enlarged European Community envisaged. On the contrary, I think that, since we are an ancient nation, a nation that has endured centuries of viscissitudes, and not only retained but developed the things that we now look upon as our national characteristics and our national identity, I think that, far from losing our identity by returning to Europe—it is probably more accurate to call it our return rather than our arrival for the first time there —it will enhance our identity as the ancient nation that we really are. I say "our return to Europe" because, historically speaking, I would think it right to say that Europe was once a unit; at one time Europe was a recognisable entity. I hope I am not confusing Deputy Tully.

Mr. Tully

The Minister is certainly confusing me because I am afraid he must have been——

Mr. Desmond

We were always part of Europe. What is so wonderful about our rebirth into Europe?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries.

Mr. J. Gibbons

I do not think I used the expression Deputy Desmond has used. No Labour Party claque will prevent me from saying what I want to say. I should like to remind some of the Labour Party claque that, while we were listening to Deputy Cruise O'Brien's speech about the disillusion of the nation and the dependence of the Irish nation on symbolism, we heard him in silence and we heard him with good manners.

Mr. Tully

On a point of order may I point out that it was the Minister himself who asked me a question, a question I did not pursue?

Mr. J. Gibbons

The Deputy was making funny facial gestures.

Mr. Tully

I am sure I am entitled to do that when listening to what the Minister is saying.

Mr. J. Gibbons

What was I saying?

Mr. Tully

There goes the Minister again. Always asking questions and, then, he gets the wrong answers.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister.

Mr. J. Gibbons

Speaking of symbolism, it is, I think, symbolic of the Labour Party's confusion of mind that we listened to one of their most celebrated Deputies for more than an hour before we could determine whether he was in favour of our approach to the EEC or whether he was not and, as I have already said, in the heel of the hunt, it was only obscurely clear, if I may use that paradox.

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

I do not think the Minister was here for all of it.

Mr. J. Gibbons

I regret I was not.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Chair must insist on one speaker.

Mr. J. Gibbons

I should have thought that, having heard at least 70 minutes of it, it should have been possible to say one way or the other but, even at the end, it was still pretty obscure.

Dr. O'Donovan

Was the Minister not here for the last sentence of it?

Parliamentary Secretary to the Taoiseach (Mr. Andrews)

He was here for the last century of it.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Order. The Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries.

Dr. O'Donovan

Since the Minister was here for the last sentence of it I do not think he is entitled to make the kind of allegation he has made.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister has the floor and no other Deputy may interrupt.

Mr. J. Gibbons

I would ask you, Sir, to be patient with the Labour Party. They have been unable to determine what posture to adopt.

Mr. Tully

And you fellows are not good at adopting postures!

Mr. J. Gibbons

They feel that by keeping an organised claque interrupting here they will disguise their own inability to make up their minds. I would remind them again that this will not work and I will say what I have got to say regardless of interruptions.

I want to approach this, not with a backdrop of thermonuclear bombs, as Deputy Cruise-O'Brien did, but to consider for a moment the realities—

Dr. Cruise-O'Brien

Thermonuclear bombs are realities.

Mr. J. Gibbons

——that affect the ordinary lives of the ordinary people and especially the people with whom my Department is most concerned, the people in the agricultural sector. It is because of the great complexity and detail of the common agricultural policy of the Community that the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries had a special study made—Irish Agriculture and Fisheries in the EEC—and that has been issued to every Deputy. The views expressed in the White Paper are based upon an assessment of the application here of a full EEC agricultural régime as it stands at present. There may be some changes in the common agricultural policy before our accession or before it is fully applied for. But, obviously, any realistic assessment at this stage must be based primarily on existing arrangements and not on speculation as to how this might further evolve at some future time.

It is also necessary to bear in mind that there will be a transitional period for applicant countries following their formal accession. During that period, the applicant countries will gradually bring their economies and trade policies into harmony with those of the Community. In the case of agriculture, this means that a common agricultural policy would not become fully operative in the applicant states on entry into the Community but will be phased over a period of years.

It will be our anxiety to see that Irish agriculture will not suffer during the transitional period. I think the general prospect for the Irish farmer is that he can reasonably expect higher prices and the opportunity of competing on equal terms, and probably for the first time, with other farmers throughout the enlarged Community in a greatly expanded market. He will no longer be at the disadvantage of competing in a market such as the one he has been used to over the decades, a country where there exists a policy of cheap food and also an agricultural subsidy policy that is inimical to the interests of the Irish farmer.

The general level of Irish agricultural producer prices is lower than that of the Community. It is reasonable to expect that, in the case of cattle, we could reasonably look forward to an increase of 60 per cent in prices. The present EEC guide price for cattle is almost 288/- per cwt. live weight. That is nearly 60 per cent above the level of the average price of fat cattle here in 1969. Consequently, even allowing for transport costs to export markets, we could expect a substantial rise in cattle prices.

The common target price in the EEC is about 3s 9d a gallon for milk with a butter fat content of 3.5 per cent. The comparable prices for manufacturing milk to the Irish farmer in 1969 averaged about 2s 5d. The common target price, of course, is not a guaranteed price and the precise level of the producer price here will be affected not only by the prices ruling in an enlarged Community for the principal dairy products but also by the efficiency of our manufacturing industry. However, it is safe to assume a substantial rise in our creamery milk price.

Dr. Browne

If there are all these advantages for the farmer, why did we then withdraw our application to join the Common Market?

Mr. J. Gibbons

I have had to contend with a continuous stream of interruption from the Labour Party.

Mr. Tully

That is not true. The Minister asked three questions and was angry because he did not get answers.

Mr. J. Gibbons

I told the Labour Party and I told the House that, regardless of interruptions of this kind, I propose to say what I want to say— and that is what I am doing. I was talking about the prospects for milk and milk products in the EEC. I want to mention sheep now. There is, as yet, no——

Notice taken that 20 Members were not present; House counted, and 20 Members being present,

Mr. J. Gibbons

I was saying there is no organised market for sheep in the Community.

Mr. Andrews

It is extraordinarily irresponsible of the Deputy who calls for a quorum to withdraw himself then from the House—Deputy Dr. Browne.

Mr. J. Gibbons

Taking that in balance, I do not think it is a bad bargain.

Dr. O'Connell

The Minister was getting no support.

Mr. J. Gibbons

While there is no organised market for sheep in the EEC at the present time, the establishment of such an organisation has been under discussion. It is reasonable to assume that it will come about. If we get an equal chance of competition with continental and British producers, it is likely that the prices for sheep should improve quite substantially.

Coming to barley, the likely intervention price for barley here would be about 20 per cent above our present support price. There is no target or guaranteed price in the Community. The level of the threshold price for oats should result in a higher price for Irish producers. In any event, the price of oats could be expected to be influenced by the increase in the price of barley. Our wheat price is already up to, if not slightly above, the EEC level and will not, therefore, increase as a result of our accession to the Community. Therefore, the overall picture in the case of cereals is likely to be that coarse grains will increase somewhat at the expense of wheat.

There is no target or guaranteed price in the Community for pigs but, in view of the provisions for support in certain circumstances and the current level of pig prices in the Community, there should be an increased price for pigs here although it may not be very significant. It is probably true that, on the other hand, food costs will be higher. It may be that the rate of profit per pig will show some reduction. While that is so, it is also true that countries like Britain and Denmark will also have to contend with similar difficulties and this will help to offset any disadvantages there might be.

Our sugar beet price is already slightly higher than the EEC price, although the ex-factory price for refined sugar is lower. Sugar production in member states is to be governed by production quotas up to 1975. The question of any quota to apply here up to that time will be a matter for negotiation. Naturally we want to meet, from our own beet production, our own requirements of sugar and our requirements for the export trade.

Horticulture, which accounts for approximately 3 per cent of our agricultural output, will probably have to face some pretty stiff competition in EEC conditions. In some cases, factors such as weight, transport costs and perishability, will provide some measure of built-in protection. While it is clear that our producers will have to meet increased competition for certain products on the market here, there is no need for pessimism. Given the highest standards of efficiency at all stages of the industry, there is no reason why the success already being achieved in some branches of this industry—for example, in the production of mushrooms and tomatoes for export—should not be repeated in other branches of the horticultural industry. Our tomato industry in particular has made considerable progress in recent years in the export trade as well as in the home market. I am confident that it will be able to meet the increased competition which can be expected following the liberalisation of trade.

As regards the overall effects on agricultural production, the many variable factors involved render it difficult to make any kind of reliable quantitative assessment of the increase in output as a result of the application of the full EEC régime here. We have tentatively estimated that the volume of gross agricultural output might show an increase by the end of the decade of something in the order of 30 to 40 per cent over the present level. Because of the change to the Community's higher price levels, the increase in the value of gross output would, of course, be considerably higher than these figures. The increases in volume would be accounted for, in the main, by increased output of livestock and livestock products.

I want to mention some of the costs that the farmers will have to encounter. The first of these is in the matter of feed prices. Certain other costs may also increase. Perhaps fertiliser prices will increase if it is decided that subsidies on them are not permitted. Similarly, certain production grants may not be permitted or may have to be modified after examination by the EEC Commission. The second point is that there will be increased competition on the home market from imports. Up to now, the home market has been reserved largely for Irish farmers but, as a member of the Community, it will be open to the produce of all other member states except in so far as it may be necessary to protect the animal and plant health position of countries. At the same time, the markets of all other members will be open to our farmers as well. I see no reason why the Irish farmer under uniform competition conditions should not be able to meet the challenge successfully and hold his own in the markets.

To the processor and exporter of Irish agricultural produce, membership of the Community should bring substantial benefits. It will provide free access to a market of 250 million people on equal competitive terms and at reasonably economic prices. We are all only too well aware of the difficulties which confront an agricultural exporting country in the food markets of the world of today, so we will greatly welcome full and free access to a large market on fair competitive terms. Our exporters can, of course, expect to meet keen competition in the enlarged market from the produce of other member states and, accordingly, the most efficient processing and marketing methods must be employed.

The returns from our exports of cattle, dairy products and other livestock products should show a significant increase in value. The Exchequer will, in due course, be relieved of a heavy burden, now some £37 million per year, in respect of agricultural price supports which will then become a Community obligation. Of course, we shall be contributing to the Community funds but the amount should not exceed £19 million per year. Because of our geographical position the bulk of our exports of agricultural products is likely to continue to go to Britain where the current quantitative control arrangements for bacon, butter and cheese will have to be phased out. Of course, market prices for most of our main exports will be significantly above present levels.

We would, however, also envisage an increase in our exports of cattle, beef, lamb and possibly pig meat to the continental countries of the Community. I should say that we will look forward in particular to developing the lamb trade with these countries. So far as the consumer is concerned, the application of the common Community farm prices here would increase the price of certain foodstuffs. The commodities most affected would be beef, butter, milk, cheese, lamb and to a smaller extent sugar, flour and bread. A tentative estimate of the effects on food prices of the full application of the EEC agricultural régime is that it would eventually increase the food price index by between 11 and 16 per cent over the present level. It would mean about 3 to 4½ per cent in the overall consumer price index.

I should stress, however, that this is a tentative estimate and makes no allowances for possible changes in patterns of food consumption or possible changes in Community or world prices. This increase in food prices will also be spread over whatever transitional period is fixed for the applicant countries. The consumer will benefit as a taxpayer as he will be relieved of the cost of national price supports. As I have already said, this is about £37 million annually.

Exports to non-member countries will qualify for supports from the European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund. In addition, the Exchequer will benefit from assistance from that fund towards such projects of a structural nature as will be accepted by the Community for assistance from the fund. It is not possible to indicate which projects may be accepted. Neither is it possible to indicate precisely what other aids currently given in support of agriculture here may have to be terminated as being incompatible with the treaty as these are matters which would have to be examined and ruled on by the Commission. As I have already said, we shall have to make a contribution to the financing of the Community.

I should like to refer to the much publicised Mansholt Plan which has given rise to a good deal of comment in the past 18 months or so. This plan was submitted by the Commission to the Council of Ministers at the end of 1968. It consisted of a series of recommendations for reforming conditions in agriculture in the existing Community and it was put forward as a basis for discussion before final proposals were drafted by the Commission. It is important to bear in mind that the plan represented proposals only, not decisions. It was primarily aimed at correcting structural weaknesses in the Community's agriculture and the elimination of large production surpluses particularly in the dairy products area.

The plan got a very mixed reception within the Community itself and recently the Commission revised some of the proposals contained in it. Basically, it aimed at reducing the number of people engaged in agriculture by facilitating their diversion to other employment and the creation of more viable enterprises for those remaining in agriculture and the diversion of some agricultural land to purposes other than agricultural uses such as afforestation, heartland and things of that kind.

A significant feature of the Commission's revised proposals is that they are now proposed for adoption by the Council of Ministers as a set of guidelines for member states rather than as specific, mandatory regulations. Member states, therefore, have some flexibility and discretion in the adoption of measures within their respective territories to achieve the aims of the plan. Unlike the original plan also, the revised proposals do not define specifically in terms of crop acreage or livestock numbers the minimum standard for holdings which would be eligible for assistance under the plan. The Council of Ministers have not so far pronounced on the revised proposals and it is not possible to say at this stage what type of plan may ultimately be adopted. Because of the differences in the structure of agriculture between the applicant countries and the present Six the kind of plan required for an enlarged Community of Ten would not have to deal with the same type of conditions as those for which the present plan was designed. As a member country, we would be able to have our say in any new proposals.

In the case of fisheries for which a common policy has not yet been finalised in the Community our assessment of the implications of membership is that we would stand to gain since our trade with the EEC, which is the largest customer for our fish, would be on more favourable terms. If we can increase our production we should be able to expand trade considerably particularly in the export of fresh-water fish, pelagic fish and shellfish. On the other hand, we could expect with the freeing of trade, increased imports of such fish as plaice and cod. A matter which will be of concern to us is the possibility that fishing vessels of member states will be afforded equal conditions of access to and exploitation of fishing grounds within the exclusive fishing rights of other member states. This would create problems for our valuable inshore fisheries and our fishermen unless safeguards were provided. However, this proposal for access to fisheries within the exclusive fishery limits of member states is still being debated within the Community. It is a matter that would also be of concern to other member states and applicant countries as well as to ourselves.

In the coming negotiations it will be necessary to raise a number of aspects of the Community's agricultural arrangements and to seek solutions of the problems that arise or might arise. For example, because of our animal and plant health standards the adoption of some of the Community's regulations would involve a lowering of our standards, for instance, if we were obliged to introduce vaccination of livestock against foot and mouth disease. The Community's agricultural policy is not static. The price levels which apply today will probably be modified in the coming years and the arrangements at present obtaining for some individual commodities may well be modified also. At this juncture nobody can say what the exact position will be at the date of our entry or at the end of the transition period.

Irrespective of the changes made, however, the Irish agricultural industry will be operating in a vastly improved trading situation and will be able to make the most of its natural advantages in the production of livestock products. As I said at the beginning, the main agricultural advantages which membership of the EEC will bring us will be access to a large market at favourable prices and on the same terms as apply to our competitors. Up to this we had to export much of our output at world prices and for some of our main commodities these prices have been at very uneconomic levels. On the British market, which takes the bulk of our exports, Britain's policy of maintaining consumer food prices at a low level and supplementing their own farmers' income by large subsidies has created many difficulties for us. Because of the unsatisfactory level of prices on export markets generally our agricultural output could be expanded only with the help of heavy State subsidisation. There is a limit to the burden which the Exchequer can bear. The common agricultural policy of the EEC will transform this situation in a very beneficial way. The policy of enabling farmers to dispose of their products on Community and world markets and its implementation in an enlarged Community will mean that we shall no longer be in the position of having to export to low-price markets. Our exports in turn will increase substantially and we shall be able to compete in Community markets on equal terms with farmers from other member states.

The road ahead is by no means smooth or easy. Nor will membership provide a panacea for all agricultural troubles. It is true that there are opportunities there for us to take and the number of these which we can turn to our own good depends on the concerted initiative, drive and energy of all those people concerned in the chain of production, processing and marketing. I have no doubt about the ability of our producers, processors and exporters to compete with the best but faith in our ability must be matched with reality in action if we are to make the best of the opportunities which membership will open up for us. In this regard I should like to express my personal conviction that, given the opportunity that membership will offer us, Irish farmers, in spite of the fears that seem to haunt certain Members of the House, will rise to the occasion very well indeed. They have an opportunity now we have never had before and I have the utmost faith in the ability of the farmers of Ireland to avail of it.

Sir Anthony Esmonde

In common with all other Deputies I received this pamphlet which advocates that Ireland should not join the Common Market. It is only fair that those of us who favour the entry of this country into the Common Market from the economic point of view and otherwise should endeavour to answer some of these arguments. The principal arguments contained in this pamphlet against joining relate to culture, loss of sovereignty and economic dependence.

In regard to the cultural angle, from my observations which have been considerable over a good many years in all the countries of the Common Market, I see no sign whatever of the loss of national cultural standards. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if and when we do join the Common Market we shall probably be more keen to uphold our cultural standards than before. In other words, we shall be on trial before the European countries on those standards and I am certain we shall live up to them.

On the loss of sovereignty, if we think for a moment of the foundation of the Common Market and the motives behind it, we shall see this argument does not carry weight either. The Common Market was founded by three great Christian statesmen. They had the advantage that they spoke the same language and were able to get together and hammer out their problems without being surrounded by journalists, television cameras and so forth. What they decided to do was to try to lay the feud that existed between France and Germany, which had been responsible for two world wars and which had disturbed the economy not only of those countries but of the entire world. The enmity that existed between those two countries was not the product of this century alone but had been brought forward from the last century and centuries before. They succeeded in their primary object, to lay that feud and those two countries which heretofore had been the cause of two major wars in this century were able to come together and form an economic union. They were able to do that, in my opinion, without any great loss of sovereignty but at least they mitigated the extreme nationalism that existed before and have secured, at least over the past 25 years or so, continuity of peace in Europe. Therefore, the writers of this pamphlet and those who are behind it need have no anxiety in regard to loss of our sovereignty. Although there may be a small loss of overall sovereignty because of a supra-national institution coming into being, I do not think it will affect us nationally in any way and, if it makes for peace and a better world, I think we in Ireland can make a contribution.

The third reason given in this pamphlet is economic dependence. I do not think any Deputy will deny that at the moment we are economically dependent to a much too large extent on the United Kingdom. That view has been expressed time and again by the reports issued by the OECD of which we are members and in which they stress that the Irish economy should endeavour to expand itself overseas into other markets. To my mind the meaning of economic dependence is that if a country finds itself in financial difficulties it very often has to borrow money elsewhere. That creates far greater economic dependence than anything else. I suggest that if we become a member of such a strong economic union as the EEC there must be a wonderful advantage in doing so and, if anything, it must give greater economic independence than we enjoy today.

This pamphlet has been produced with great care by somebody or other. It is only right that in a national Parliament such at this we should consider the views of other people, especially on this important issue and, if we do not agree with their arguments, we should state the reasons why. Another point stressed here is that we shall have only a few votes as against the number of votes that the other countries will have in relation to parliamentary discussions that take place. That is to assume that the other nine nations will be in total agreement with one another at every point. This is out of the question. Nations never agree on every point and our votes will be valuable and will be sought after. Having been a member of an international assembly for a few years I know that even though you only have a few votes, even though you are only a small country, you can have influence if you exert pressure in the right direction.

Whoever represents this country in the Common Market, whether at parliamentary or commission levels—and if we get in fairly soon it might still be the Fianna Fáil Party—I feel sure they will be able to give a good account of themselves. If they do not, we still have national sovereignty and they will have to answer for it in this Parliament.

Deputy Corish suggested we should seek external association with the EEC rather than direct membership. That does not make sense to me at the present stage of proceedings. At the moment there is an application in for full membership on behalf of this country and negotiations will start very shortly. I have stressed here in this House on many occasions that we should have sought external association five years ago. Had we done so then we still would have been able to trade as we have been trading to date and we would have been building for ourselves a niche in the markets of the EEC. To say that we should now seek external association refutes the idea that if Britain enters the Common Market it is necessary for us to enter at the same time.

Everybody will agree that if the United Kingdom get into the Common Market and we do not it will pose a lot of problems for us. I do not mean to say that we should be negotiating in conjunction with Britain or in full agreement in our negotiations with the United Kingdom or that we should follow the same line as they do, because we have totally different problems. We are an exporting agricultural country; they are an importing agricultural country. They have a long standing tradition of industrialisation, while we have a comparatively modern one.

I should hate to feel that whoever is negotiating on our behalf—I take it it will be the Minister for External Affairs—would tie up our negotiations with the British negotiations. We should negotiate independently. I am long enough in political life—I am a son of a parliamentarian and a grandson of a parliamentarian—and I have been long enough in association with British parliamentarians to know that, if they could, they would like to bury us in their pockets; they would like to take us into the negotiations and create the idea that they were solving Ireland's problems. Ireland's problems are Ireland's problems and no one else's. Let us negotiate as a sovereign State even though we may be giving away a small degree of some of our sovereignty, but at least let us fight our own battle on Irish principles and Irish economics. Unless we do that we will be destroyed from the word "go"

Any negotiations that take place in Europe should be handled and decisions taken at political level. It is a curious thing that in this country, and to a lesser extent in Britain, very often such decisions are taken by civil servants. My experience of Europe, which is considerable, is that civil servants in Europe have very much less say than they have here and in Britain. Negotiations and decisions will be handled and taken in Europe at political level. It is up to us to see that our decisions are taken at the same level.

I want now to say something about our infrastructure. There is no use imagining that we can go into negotiations for the Common Market with the idea that we are totally prepared for such negotiations, that everything is in order and that if we get in everything will be grand afterwards, that our economy will build up, and so on. We have got to take a very hard look at our infrastructure and see if it is in order. In most European countries about 10 per cent of working time is devoted to management. When I say "management" I do not mean only the higher executive drawing a huge salary and sitting in an office with three or four telephones at his elbow. I mean right from the top down. This is what other countries have concentrated on. Admittedly, we did look into the question of management recently but not to the same degree as they have done in Europe, not to the extent to which countries with which we will be competing have done. This is something on which the Government would want to get moving straight away. Management, of course, will be responsible for greater production, and greater production will be necessary if we are to survive in the economic battle which we will enter if we become partners with the other nations in the European Economic Community.

Not only is management necessary but we will also have to keep an eye on our costs of production. It is an unquestionable fact that our costs of production have gone up considerably. I think I am right in saying that our costs of production over the last few years have risen higher than those in any other country in the world except Japan. Whether or not we price ourselves out of markets remains to be seen, but we will have to pay greater attention to management. I also want to emphasise that, even if you have the best management in the world, you cannot get production unless you have placid labour relations and a people able and willing to work.

For a long time I have listened to people in this House talking about shorter hours, higher wages and greater production. You can carry that a certain distance, but you ultimately come to the stage at which you are not getting the production; if you are working shorter hours and you are paying higher wages, you are getting higher costs of production and you have to consider the overall economic position.

I should also like to stress that our battle for economic existence will become tough if we get into the Common Market. These are factors which we must take into consideration. There are other factors also in our infrastructure. For instance, if somebody wants to make a telephone call from Athlone to Portlaoise it takes anything up to two hours to get through. If we enter the EEC we will have a lot of overseas communications and if we have a bad communication system, be it the telephone system or otherwise, it will be detrimental to our economic prosperity. Recently I read where somebody booked a telephone call to an American firm and, as is done in these cases, the person arranged to phone the firm at a certain time, but by the time he got on to the exchange the time arranged for the call had passed. Unless that sort of situation is rectified it will cause serious trouble.

These are some of the vitally important aspects of our infrastructure at which we should look in relation to our entry to the Common Market. Recently the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries spoke about our agricultural prospects in the Common Market. There is no denying the fact that the agricultural benefits which will accrue to us will be enormous, but I thought he was a little too sanguine in his remarks. I do not disagree in any way with what he said on the subject of beef but he did mention that milk was 3s 9d a gallon in the EEC countries and that here the average price is 2s 3d a gallon.

Of course, everything is regulated by supply and demand and if the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries had studied the conditions properly he would have realised that there is a considerable surplus of milk in the EEC. It may well be that the advent of the United Kingdom into the Common Market may ease the situation as far as this sector of agriculture is concerned, but I am dubious about whether it will absorb the surpluses which exist within those countries. Therefore I do not think it was very wise of the Minister—no doubt he will be freely reported in the newspapers—to say that the Irish farmer will get 3s 9d a gallon for his milk because it is indisputable that his predecessor had to introduce an incentive to try to wean the farmers away from milk and into beef. For that reason I think his assessment of the position is somewhat optimistic.

There is no doubt that we will have enormous agricultural benefits from our traditional production which, over the centuries you might say, has been beef. There is no doubt that we should concentrate now, if we do enter the EEC, on the finished product. Instead of exporting it on the hoof we should process the product in our meat factories and utilise the by-products. That would be very much easier for us then to export it to Europe and, at the same time, it would give a greater measure of employment than has been possible heretofore. As a small developing country, industrially, we shall probably be allowed some leeway for a period. We will have a certain measure of industrial unemployment. This is inevitable because, despite the fact that some of these factories have been in production for many years and have had the full measures of protection given to them, they have not made themselves into viable units on a free market. I can certainly visualise some industries being forced to close down. We must face this fact. Therefore, in so far as we can, we should change over to a policy of processing agricultural raw materials at home in order to give employment in this country; otherwise we shall have a very high rate of emigration.

If we are members of the Common Market we will be very useful to people outside the EEC area who may wish to site industries here for the purpose of exporting to the Common Market. I am referring to the United States and Canada who will not be members of the Community and I forsee an inflow of capital into this country from people who might wish to gain a foothold in the EEC. This factor could be of considerable assistance to us and could help our economy to a considerable extent.

I should like to say a few words on the question of tourism. I have stayed in hotels in various countries in Europe and have always looked through the brochures available in the hotels; there is always a reference to Britain and other European countries but never to Ireland. I do not know whether Bord Fáilte have any plans to publicise Ireland on the Continent but I am firmly of the opinion that some steps should be taken to bring this country to the attention of the people on the Continent and in this connection I regard membership of the EEC as doing much to help us.

We are told that negotiations will commence in the near future. Ireland's bargaining power will lie not just with one country but with the Community. All the bargaining that takes place in international forums is on a quid pro quo basis for every country. I hope whoever bargains on behalf of this country will be fully alive to that fact. I was relieved to see that the Minister for External Affairs adopted the course I have been long advocating, namely of visiting the countries of Europe. As a result of his visit I think he now realises that this quid pro quo bargaining exists. We will be bargaining with the other countries and we should not forget that member states of the EEC have had many tough bargaining sessions before agricultural agreements were reached. There were several all-night sessions before agreements were reached and there has probably been more negotiations within the EEC than between the Community and outside countries. Our negotiators should remember that they are negotiating a settlement for Ireland and that we will get support only by stating our case and learning what the other side are looking for. If we offer to support them on certain principles in return they will give us their support and this is the only course to adopt.

However, I still have the fear that our negotiators will be "walked into it" by the British negotiators. The British do not like to give up anything they hold; they still hold us in economic dependence and they will try to put the negotiations across on the basis that we have united interests. This is not so because we have Irish interests and they are merely interested in their own country. We can help each other on many matters but we should not exclude the other countries also.

By and large, it is a wise decision to apply for membership of the EEC. Politically and economically it is the right thing to do and it is wise nationally because small countries cannot afford to exist alone in present circumstances. Those who speak of being, and remaining, totally independent do not fully appreciate the dangers that exist in the world today. One of the previous speakers mentioned the grave dangers that faced Europe in the late 1950s and early 1960s from the Soviet bloc and he mentioned that the situation has now greatly changed. It has changed because of the strength of the EEC and the power that Community have built up for themselves economically. The countries behind the Iron Curtain realised that here was a trading bloc with whom it would be wise to trade. They realised that the Community constituted a formidable presence in Europe and this was what started the thaw. I am stressing the fact to show that a strong economic bloc can play a vital part in the cause of world peace.

The world has changed enormously in the past 40 years. One can travel from one end of the earth to the other. Circumstances have changed. It is not a time for isolation. It is not a time for controversy amongst nations. It is a time for unity. Surely Ireland, of all countries, that never sought to conquer anybody, that never sought anything but peace, surely she can play a vital part? I feel sure we have the people who can play that part. I feel sure that the country, if it puts its back into it, will be able to stand up to all the difficulties that we may face in the EEC. I only hope the Government will stand firm, never forgetting that our interests count before anything else, and will make that which they are in a position to make—a good bargain for Ireland.

Dr. O'Connell

I find this White Paper a very disturbing document. I am very disturbed about what is in store for us if we enter the Common Market. I got the distinct impression from the Taoiseach that we were going headlong into this. He spoke with no degree of enthusiasm. He spoke as if this was inevitable, as if there was no way out. I thought his speech a rather mournful one and I have not been convinced by any of the speeches by Government Ministers or members of the Fianna Fáil Party subsequently that there is any opportunity for us in the Common Market.

I appreciate the fact that Britain has made application. It seems as if, as usual, we must copy Britain. This debate is a very serious one and the decison we take here will be a momentous one. I am greatly disturbed at what appears to be offered to us. I am more disturbed about what will happen to our workers if we become members of the Common Market.

I do not want to paint a gloomy picture, but it seems to me that the whole industrial framework here will collapse if we enter. I spoke recently to an important German and he said we would have to join but he did not see any great prospects for us within the framework of the Common Market. He did not see any great prospects for our industries. I asked him if it would be possible for us to have a ten-year transitional period and he shook his head. He said all countries would have the same transitional period of five years. We are expected to go in on the same terms as Britain with a five-year transitional period. Have our Government gone mad? Do they really think we should be on a par with Britain? We can delude ourselves about many things, but we cannot delude ourselves that our industrial arm is on a par with Britain's. It is ludicrous to compare the two. Ireland is basically made up of very small industrial units. We have very few public companies and very few big industries. I would say, without hesitation, that over 60 per cent of our industries will collapse if we enter the Common Market.

We first made application for entry in July, 1961. We set up—this is important; it shows how serious we were and the planning that was being done —An Comhairle Oiliúna in May, 1967, six years later, for the purpose of training our workers. That is the preparation we made for the Common Market, about entry into which this Government are seriously thinking.

I do not think we have had a complete picture of what industries will survive. I am not concerned so much about industry as I am about the workers in industry. There is no security for them, no guarantee of continued employment. We have not been told which industries will survive and which will not. Everything is pure speculation. If 60 per cent of our industries do not survive, what will happen? We will have mass emigration. We have a tragic record of emigration. Our country has been bled over the years. We had emigration to the United States. Later we had emigration to Britain. We are painfully aware of the extent of this, of the break-up of families, of fathers having to go to Britain to find work. There was, perhaps, always the feeling that they could get home comparatively easily. Britain was not so far away. I am wondering what will happen when we get mass emigration again. It will be to the Ruhr, to Dusseldorf, to Frankfurt.

We can forget about compulsory Irish. Let the Minister for Education plan now for compulsory German and compulsory French. These are the languages that will be needed. This is all here in the White Paper. Here are the plans for Irish workers when they go abroad. I can see the industrial estates around Dublin — Drimnagh, Ballyfermot, Crumlin — closing down and the workers from these areas sending home remittances from Germany and France.

In the White Paper, it says:

Under the provisions of the free movement of workers, Irish workers will be permitted to take up employment in any country of the enlarged Community. The number emigrating, would depend primarily on the employment opportunities available at home

——which, I can say now, will be very much reduced. It continues:

In view of the traditional patterns of emigration and of the absence of language difficulties

——now we accept the fact that there will be mass emigration from here

——it is considered that Britain will remain the main attraction for Irish workers and that the movement to the Continent would not be significant.

Further on it says that the families who want to go with the Irish workers will be permitted to do so provided that homes and houses are available on the Continent for the Irish workers and their families. It says, furthermore, that it is not expected that foreign workers or workers from the EEC countries will come here—why? They will not come here because there will be no job opportunities in this country for them. But, and this is small comfort to the Irish worker, the social security for the migrant workers will be provided for. When they move on to the Ruhr and to other parts of the Continent, the Common Market will ensure that social security is paid to them. It is a depressing picture. It reminds me of when I was in America and I saw the migrant Mexicans. They could travel into the United States from Mexico. They had little difficulty about the social security and the health benefits: it was provided as a matter of charity for them. I ran a clinic there; I know. This reminded me very much of it. It says:

Provided only that accommodation is available, wives, children and dependent relatives will be allowed to accompany workers employed in another member State and must be given the same rights to take up employment there.... In addition, their children must be able to benefit on equal terms from the State's general education and vocational training courses.

I am wondering what the benefits to this country will be. We say our workers will be able to settle down on the Continent. We say the cost of living is going up. This is assured here on page 47 where it says:

...the full application of current EEC agricultural prices here would involve an increase of the order of 11-16 per cent on the present level of the retail price index for food.

If I remember rightly, the ex-Prime Minister of Britain, Mr. Harold Wilson, said that the cost of living for the housewife would go up by £3 10s to £4 per week. I hope our Irish housewives will take note of this fact. I do not think it is a very attractive prospect for us to know that the cost of living is going to go up by such an amount. When Mr. Harold Wilson said that, he no doubt had reason to believe that that is what the increase would be. The White Paper also tells us that the cost of living will be spread out over a number of years, depending on the length of the transitional period. Therefore, after five years, we can expect that a very high increase in the cost of living will take place.

Why are we in the Labour Party opposed to all this? We are opposed to it because we are the champions of the working class, the people who will be most affected by entry into the EEC, the people who will find their lives disrupted and their homes broken up, the people who will suffer loss of employment, the people who must seek new employment, the people whose children will find themselves in a new environment. I do not think that is a very nice prospect for the Irish worker. We feel we must oppose entry because of that.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance (Mr. Lemass)

That is official Labour Party Policy?

Dr. O'Connell

That is official Labour Party policy. We must ensure that the Irish worker is protected.

Mr. Lemass

It was not clear this morning.

Dr. O'Connell

I hope the Parliamentary Secretary will say his bit on our entry into the EEC.

Mr. Lemass

From the reports in the paper this morning, that was not clear.

Dr. O'Connell

I am making it clear now. We were ridiculed when we opposed the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement. We were told we were a bunch of reactionaries. For the first two years it looked as if we were wrong. Everything was very nice for us here. The balance was very much in our favour for the first two years. I remember the members of the Fianna Fáil Party laughing at us and saying how wrong we were, that this was the new era, the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement. Then, we suddenly had the British onslaught. Look at the figure now and see what the balance is like with Britain and see how powerless we were when the levies were imposed. We asked our Minister to go to the British Minister and to tell him that this agreement had been broken. He held out his hands and said, in effect: "What can we do? This was an agreement. We were sold down the river". The Minister for External Affairs said we were helpless in a matter like this. We were caught by that agreement and there is no doubt about this.

I heard the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries say that the opportunity we now have is an opportunity which we never had before. If I remember rightly, Deputy Seán Lemass, the former Taoiseach, said the same thing about the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement. But in the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement we had certain concessions which we will not have if we become members of the EEC. First, we will not have the power to give State aids to Irish industry or special tax reliefs to attract foreign industries here. That will go by the board. We will not have the power to establish new State industries if we become members of the Common Market. Of course, we will have an influx of non-nationals buying Irish land. We will also lose the power to prevent the outflow of Irish savings from this country. Indeed, I stand to be corrected on every one of these——

Dr. FitzGerald

Yes.

Dr. O'Connell

The Deputy does not think we will lose the power.

Dr. FitzGerald

I shall be speaking later.

Dr. O'Connell

I can say that the one concession we had under the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Area Agreement will disappear if we become members of the EEC. I think it concerns the confectionery industry. There was one clause in that which gives certain protection here and it will be eliminated.

I was wondering about the state of preparedness of Irish industry. I know one particular industry which employs over 100 workers. This is a totally Irish industry, suffering from a handicap suffered by many small totally Irish industries — undercapitalisation. A grant or a loan was sought and I think they got the princely sum of £2,000 for a re-adaptation grant. I notice that the foreign investors, those industrialists who will pack up and leave, got the big grants. They have no base here.

I am wondering about some of our German industrialists. What inducements have they to stay here? Their industries are only offshoots of big international combines. Their only justification was tax reliefs and special concessions which will not apply any more, so we can see them packing up. I am thinking of one near Bantry which I saw and which gets considerable tax relief. There will be no justification for him to remain here if we enter the Common Market.

Mr. Lemass

Semperit?

Dr. O'Connell

I am speaking about a factory in Bantry.

Mr. Lemass

I was thinking of our constituency.

Dr. O'Connell

I am far away from Ballyfermot. I think the prospects for Ballyfermot are deplorable. If we were seriously considering entering the EEC, were we planning in those years since we applied in 1961? In 1967 we first set up the Industrial Training Authority to promote and assist in the improvement of industrial and commercial training, to induce industry to carry out the training, and to provide training and retraining in its own training centres. That was six years after we first applied. I notice that all these long-term measures to raise technological skills at all levels were established very recently, which is no great credit to this Government. They thought a magic wand would be waved, we would be in, and everything would be solved for us. They are realising now at the eleventh hour that there was work to be done which was not done. There was no planning.

Reading through the White Paper I was very disturbed at the possibility of dumping. It became evident to me that this is exactly what this country will be—a place where they can dump their goods and against which there will be no protection. The only assurance we have is that it is proposed to discuss the matter in the course of the negotiations. That is the assurance we have against dumping. What happens in the case of declining industries? I will quote again:

At the same time, in the case of declining industries, it is only in exceptional circumstances that action should be taken to slow down the process of contraction. Efforts should rather be concentrated on retraining the workers and finding them new jobs.

I could continue and say "on the continent". It is also stated that the EEC's Second Medium-Term Economic Policy Programme recommends that support for individual industries should be given only in exceptional cases.

It is little wonder that we in the Labour Party are very concerned about the implications for our workers of our entering the EEC. According to the Taoiseach there is no way out; there are no alternatives. Still, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland and Austria think there are. They do not see total economic collapse for their countries if they do not apply for membership of the EEC. We are also concerned about the constitutional problems and the political implications. Ireland will most certainly lose its sovereignty. We will lose our identity. We will have no say whatsoever in the affairs of this country. The Commission operating in Luxembourg will decide everything for us. This is a serious thought. Anything we decide will have to go before the Commission.

I am very concerned about what it says in the White Paper about commitments to the defence of the Community. This is the one obstacle to Sweden's application. Sweden would not consider it because of this fact. It says:

...the cohesion and dynamism which are indispensable for the Community depend in part on the convergence of the national policies of the member States, in particular...of their foreign and defence policies.

That is a disturbing thought. Everything else is left very vague. It says:

...it is not possible to be more precise now about the political implications of membership which may evolve.

There is no turning back. Once we enter we can never turn back or change our minds. If we find that we are swallowed up, with our identity gone, and this country has become a ranch for these foreigners, there is no turning back. We are committed and that is the end of it. This is serious. Perhaps we stand alone in our opposition to it, but we should all consider it seriously. We should remember that even the British are not convinced that the Common Market is the only thing for them. Even the Tory Party which is in power in Britain at the moment is not united on the decision to join the Common Market. We know from the opinion polls in Britain—although we are inclined to discredit them at the moment—that 70 per cent of the people in Britain are opposed to entry. As I understand the position, entry will involve a referendum. I consider it important to have this debate so that the people will be enlightened on the implications of EEC membership and on what the future will be for our people before we take that headlong plunge from which there is no return.

Dr. FitzGerald

In this debate we have heard a variety of viewpoints. I think the first three speeches set the scene. The Taoiseach presented his case in a manner which seemed to me to be somewhat defensive and his speech suffered from something from which Prime Ministerial speeches generally seem to suffer—a certain lack of imagination. I think he had some difficulty in presenting the case for EEC membership in the kind of imaginative way that might make people understand the potentialities. The leader of the Labour Party presented a viewpoint which literally can only be described in the strictest sense as deeply conservative because, listening to his speech, everything he said was concerned with keeping everything as it is and preventing change—a valid viewpoint, although surprising, coming from the benches from whence it came.

On this side of the House we had the opening speech from the leader of the Fine Gael Party, Deputy Cosgrave. I do not think I am politically biassed in thinking that of the three speeches it was by far the best. I think it was noted as such by at least one of the political commentators in the newspapers. It was at a high level; it was imaginative and it avoided getting bogged down in the kind of detail which is a hazard of this type of debate. I myself, I am sure, will fail to meet that standard later on when I come to deal with some of the practical problems involved. The debate has proceeded since then and, although I, like everybody else, heard only part of it I think that sort of general pattern has been followed. Listening to the speech today by Deputy O'Higgins I felt he was following in the tradition set by Deputy Cosgrave earlier. Deputy O'Higgins's speech added a good deal to the quality of the debate. Our difficulty in this debate, it seems to me, is the difficulty that many people feel, and all of us to some degree, in grasping the reality of this Community. The tendency all along is to think in terms of the Community as being something external to ourselves with which we have to negotiate—a word frequently and, I think, partly misreadingly, used—to get terms that will be not too unfavourable to us, if not favourable to us.

Moreover, when people talk about being in the Community they seem to think in terms of this country being in a minority, having only ten votes out of 208 in the European Parliament or 30 out of 624, three votes out of 61 in the Council of Ministers and one out of 14 in the Commission, as if in fact we were joining a group which consisted of the Irish and The Rest, rather like a football match— Ireland versus the Rest of Europe— in which we would constantly find ourselves in a minority battling to protect our positions against people out to do us down.

This is a very traditional way of thinking of international relationships. It is an entirely valid way of thinking of the normal international relationship between one country and another. The interesting speech by Deputy Dr. O'Brien opened on this note. He described from a wealth of experience his viewpoint on the question of international negotiations, how one does not show one's whole hand and does not demonstrate enthusiasm for the deal the other people are presenting to you. You play it cool and try to get the best bargain for yourself. It was an excellent account of the traditional type of international negotiations and I am sure the Deputy is and would be an able negotiator in this type of negotiation. However, were he in charge of these negotiations I feel he would and does misconceive the reality of the situation and would be so much at cross purposes with the people he is "negotiating" with that he might do more harm than good. I would hesitate to say more harm than perhaps some of the less experienced negotiators on the opposite side but certainly more harm than good.

The whole approach to the EEC by those who are opposed to it, and they appear to include some people in the Labour Party also, has been full of delusions. There is a delusion that it was invented by capitalists so that they would make bigger profits; a delusion that it is some kind of an American plot to keep Europe in dependence on America; a delusion that it is all organised for the benefit of the great powers at the expense of the smaller countries, a delusion that it is disastrous for less developed countries which are not able to keep up with the rest; a delusion that weak industries will go to the wall with massive redundancy; a delusion that in the EEC the 19th century Manchester school of laissez faire applies, the law of the jungle, and that the weak will go to the wall.

This picture of the Community's origins and operations is as much at variance with any reality for which there is any evidence whatever that it does not suggest that those who put forward this case have given the matter serious consideration. At times during the last ten years I have been tempted by the deficiencies of the case against the EEC to try to prepare perhaps anonymously the case against the EEC in order to get a proper debate going. However, I must say that on this occasion, although I have many strictures to make on the case being put forward against the EEC, it is being put forward more comprehensively and with slightly more attention to the realities than previously, but still at a level which does not take any account of the real position and which involves all these delusions.

The fact is, as anybody with any knowledge of the history of the EEC knows, that the EEC was thought up and founded by predominantly left-wing politicians in the teeth of the objections of the industrialists of these countries who had all the caution industrialists have when faced with change and with very little enthusiasm for the change in some of the trade unions either, it is true. Nevertheless, imaginative politicians, socialists and left-wing Christian Democrats— in those days the Christian Democrats of Europe were left-wing, at the end of the forties and early fifties, although not all of them have remained in that position since then—took this step. These are the people who founded this Community because they wanted peace in Europe and wanted to get away from the tensions that had divided Europe before. They wanted to get away from the dependence of Europe on the great powers. They wanted to create something new and progressive in Europe. They were not dedicated to capitalism; on the contrary, they looked forward to the gradual decay of capitalism and the gradual transformation of the socialist system into something more just. These were the men who founded the EEC and those who assert that it was founded by capitalists to make bigger profits are talking utter nonsense and displaying such ignorance of the subject that their subsequent comments on other aspects of it do not merit very much consideration.

What then of the idea that it is all for the benefit of the great powers and that it is the larger countries which exploit the weaker? This is the direct opposite to the truth: the whole concept of the Community is that there shall not be exploitation of the kind which exists between small and great powers, exploitation of the kind from which we have suffered throughout the whole 50 years of independence through the process of economic exploitation by Britain. The whole idea of the Community is to prevent this happening by creating a legal framework, an institutional structure which will make it impossible for one country to be exploited by another just because it is small. For that reason the countries that are consistently the most enthusiastic for the EEC and which support its development and its institutions are above all the small countries of the EEC, Belgium, The Netherlands and Luxembourg. It is in the larger countries and particularly in the two largest, France and Germany, that you find doubts at times about the Community and above all, perhaps, in France. While the Community has been seen by some French Governments as a means of aggrandising France, a means of bringing Europe behind French policy, it has, in fact, also been seen as a danger to the ability of countries like France and Germany to exercise the kind of power which they had been used to exercising. Nevertheless, the imagination of many politicians in these countries was stirred by the possibilities of this Community and, although it meant giving up their traditional power to exploit their neighbours or to intimidate them in various ways, most of the politicians in these countries throughout most of this period have favoured the Community, but not with the consistency or the enthusiasm shown by the smaller countries who have seen in it their one prospect of getting equitable treatment in a comity of nations where they have not in the past got equitable treatment.

What about the wiping out of industries? I am not suggesting there is not a problem here. There is a problem and one which has not been tackled adequately by the Government, but I shall come back to that later. Deputy O'Connell told us 60 per cent of our industries would be wiped out. On the first occasion when this whole matter was debated and discussed there were opponents who from platforms here and elsewhere produced a figure of 100,000 jobs lost, which at that time would be about 60 per cent of manufacturing employment. These people have produced those figures out of a hat without any reference whatever to any of the enormous quantity of work that has been done on this subject and which they do not appear to have read or considered.

On what evidence do they base this thesis? What are the industries which were wiped out in any of the Six countries of Europe, including Italy, a country whose living standards are the same as our own, a country half of which is far poorer and less developed than this country? Of course, throughout the whole of the 12 years there has been constant change and flux in the Community. Of course, as in this country, there is redundancy as small and large firms disappear, faced with the problem of competition, because that is part of the whole system on which industry operates—the free enterprise system which has its merits and its demerits. One of its merits is that the inefficient firms do tend to disappear and therefore the Community is served by efficient, low cost production, making it possible for the ordinary people to buy goods in quantities and at prices they can afford.

I have never understood the viewpoint of people who say they are socialists and who want to stop the efficient element in the capitalist system from working without substituting anything else for it. There is no great merit in capitalism being inefficient. As long as the capitalist system remains, at least let it be efficient and serve humanity in that way.

There is no evidence of massive redundancies in any industry in any country of the EEC. I recall only one case in the Community where one industry was seriously adversely affected. I am not saying there were not others which I have not heard about, but there must be some significance in the fact that no one has yet been able to find them in spite of ten years of active research by those who oppose this proposal. The industry to which I refer was the French refrigerator industry which suffered from acute competition from Italy, that underdeveloped country, the country whose living standards are the same as ours, half of which is at a much lower level of development than our country is and which therefore, on the thesis of the opponents of the EEC that you have to be very highly developed to succeed, should not have got into the EEC at all, and, having got in, should have suffered and gone down the hill, its growth rate diminished and its industries wiped out.

What has happened to Italy? It has had the fastest growth rate in the EEC throughout the whole of this period up to the present time. They have their problems, but the redundancy and unemployment problem of Southern Italy has begun to be solved, a problem that was not resolved when Southern Italy was an independent kingdom on its own, a problem which was not resolved when Italy was a sovereign State outside the EEC, and which was not resolved by Mussolini or by the postwar democratic governments. This underdeveloped country had a refrigerator industry which in some curious way undermined the French refrigerator industry to such an extent that the French Government had to seek relief in respect of that industry. According to the principles on which the EEC operates, there should not be a situation in which people are made redundant or where an industry or country suffers. The members are committed to help each other in these circumstances, and Article 226 of the Treaty of Rome provides for these cases, an article of which we hear very little, although one Irish civil servant remarked a decade or so ago that on his death Article 226 might be discovered inscribed on his heart.

Mr. Lemass

I agree with everything the Deputy is saying and I think it should all be recorded. Therefore, for the sake of the reporter and the Press would the Deputy speak more slowly? It is difficult for all of us to keep with him. I agree with everything the Deputy is saying.

Dr. FitzGerald

That is a very kind thought. This is a problem I face and it is a problem that both the reporters and the Press face. I am glad to be reminded to speak somewhat slower. I shall endeavour to do so, but I am afraid that in five minutes time I shall have failed to remember.

Mr. M. O'Leary

The Deputy is showing a touching solicitude for posterity.

Dr. FitzGerald

In this case Article 226 was applied and the procedure under which protection can be given to an industry in difficulties operated. The French refrigerator industry was given time to adapt to free trade conditions and, as far as I am aware, they have succeeded in adapting. The problem was resolved in accordance with EEC principles. This is not a laissez faire institution. It is not an institution in which the weak go to the wall. On the contrary it is an institution in which provision is made to meet the difficult cases and where there is an obligation on each country to help the other countries when conditions of this kind arise.

That is the only case of which I am aware of serious difficulties arising in a particular industry, although I quite accept that many individual firms have disappeared. I remember seeing some years ago details of the French footwear industry in which hundreds of firms disappeared because, contrary to the rooted belief of many Irish people, the EEC contained many industries which were at a much earlier stage of development than ours, which involved massive numbers of very small firms, in this case cobblers in small groups of two or three people, making shoes. Hundreds of these small cobbling firms disappeared, because in France the footwear industry was far behind the Irish footwear industry which, as in the case of most of our industry, has been in operation since 1932, and all credit to the policies which led to its foundation.

This is true of other industries as well. Does anybody know of any part of Ireland where there is anything comparable to the number of small enterprises there are in Brussels? Are there not something like 100,000 enterprises making lace in the city of Brussels alone? What about Germany on the agricultural side? Where in Ireland will you find farms as small and as inefficient as those throughout much of Germany using such primitive methods?

I am not saying for a moment that this country is ready to compete with every industry in the EEC. Because of the small size of this country our industries will face great difficulties, but let us see both sides of it. Do not let us adopt the poor mouth, an inferiority complex and the constant assumption that we are always more stupid than other people, that we are always less efficient, that everyone else in the world is cleverer than us and the best thing we can do is to erect a big wall around us and keep those nasty, clever people out in case they do us down.

This is the philosophy we hear expounded so often by those who have no confidence in Ireland and no confidence in its people. This is not an attitude or a policy which will do this country any good, just as it would do this country no good if, on the other hand, we went into the EEC in a mood of euphoria, making no preparation for entry and assuming we could walk in casually and everything would work out all right. The right policy lies between these two. There is a policy, as has been said earlier by Deputy O'Higgins, compounded of hope and fear, not a policy consisting solely of fear, fear that mesmerises people into inaction and forces them back into a position where they can safeguard themselves against the terrors of the outside world. But if one just lived on hope alone it could lead one to a very poor condition indeed. It must be a policy compounded of hope and fear, a realistic policy and a realistic outlook, a hard-headed assessment of the situation, noting our strength and noting our weaknesses and preparing on our strength with confidence and mitigating our weaknesses with intelligence.

That is what we have to do and that is what this debate should be about. It should be a balanced debate giving both sides of the picture. That is our job on this side of the House. Those who oppose the EEC and who tell us all that is wrong with it have never adverted to or explained certain facts. Why is the EEC supported most strongly by the small countries in the Community? I challenge the opponents of the EEC to answer that question. It is an established fact; nobody has ever been able to challenge it and nobody who has read anything about the EEC has any hesitation in asserting that it is true. Why is it that from the beginning it was supported by the socialist parties in these countries with great strength and fervour, with, indeed, hesitation in some cases on particular points. There are many things wrong with the EEC—the failure to develop a social policy and the slow progress made in social policy are matters for severe criticism. They have been criticised by the socialist parties and the trade union movement. There are many things of that kind to be criticised, but basically the socialist parties in the EEC are behind it.

Why is this if it is all the evil things it is described as being by people who describe themselves as republicans and socialists? Is it the case that the pure spirit of socialism resides only in Ireland and in Britain, that only this is true socialism and that those on the Continent of Europe who derive their inspiration from other more Marxian sources are not true socialists, that they have not got the interests of the workers at heart, that they do not understand what socialism is about? I do not accept this. The fact is that the socialist parties played a leading part in founding this Community and have been among its most fervent supporters. They look forward to the evolution of this international Community because they are international socialists, as socialism has always been outside this country and its neighbour; they look forward to the social evolution of this Community in a direction away from capitalism and towards a just, reformed society.

Why is it that in Europe the Community is supported by younger people rather than by older people? This too should be answered. It seems to me that you simply cannot condemn without looking at it, without examining it. You cannot condemn as conservative, capitalist, dangerous to humanity something which has within itself the support of the socialist parties and of the young people. There is something very odd about a situation where a Community which gets most of its support from these areas is to be condemned as some old fashioned capitalist plot simply to make money and profits for the rich at the expense of the poor.

The mistake, of course, lies in seeing the Community in old fashioned terms. It is the inability of people to grasp that this is not a new power bloc, that it is a new type of organism in the comity of nations. The difficulty lies in the historical concept of sovereignty within Europe, and we think in narrow European terms, because we do not know enough about the way other societies have developed. In Europe throughout the last millennium there has been a development which has led, purely by chance, to a concept of sovereignty which is very simplistic, very narrow and which I think would be regarded as purely an accident of history of a somewhat temporary character. Sovereignty used be something which resided at many different levels in the feudal system.

The feudal lord owed suzerainty to a superior lord but that did not mean that this superior lord was sovereign and had all rights and could tell him what to do and what not to do. The relationship, with all its defects, had a contractual element. If that contract was broken in some way, if the duties of the superior lord to the inferior lord were not carried out, then the inferior lord held, and this was accepted, that he had the right to deviate from the contract and to align himself with some other lord who might be opposed to his traditional superior lord. There was no idea of sovereignty at one level only. There was a whole series of levels each having its own inalienable rights but subject for certain purposes to higher levels.

This system has disappeared because of the emergence of the absolute monarchies of the 17th and 18th centuries. What happened was that the particular feudal lords began to take part in creating these centralised monarchies and for reasons of personal absolute rule they took all power to themselves: the divine right of kings. Nobody had any rights above them nor had anybody any rights below them. This system was transformed in the 19th and 20th centuries into the democratic system of parliamentary government and the sovereignty which was the absolute power of the king was transferred to the parliament or government of the state concerned. There was one level of sovereignty only so that states emerged which no longer had any duties higher up—to the Pope, to the emperor, to international law—but which were absolute in their power and claimed the right to act arbitrarily and could not be impeded in any way. Also within themselves they recognised no rights lower down that the government could not take away.

We have in this country an example to hand at present. Dublin Corporation, which one would expect to be the most powerful body in their own right, after the Government, have no rights whatever except those they derive from the Government. All power rests at the level of the Government. We have great difficulty coping with the concept of devolution of authority downwards, giving actual rights to people to run some part of their own affairs at their own level because we have become so used to the concept of sovereignty, all power over everything concentrated in the hands of one group of men. Because we have got used to thinking in this way we cannot grasp what is involved in this Community.

What is involved is something much more complex than this, much more sophisticated than the simplistic system created at the time of the absolute monarchies and we are coming to recognise that the life of people is so complex and modern life is so complex that power must be exercised at a number of different levels. We are coming to recognise that for many purposes the nation state is too small. For example, the nation state cannot control international cartels. There are now in the world many companies whose tentacles reach over the boundaries of individual countries and no one of these countries can control these cartels. Indeed, one of the most powerful arguments for moving eventually towards world government is that the organisation of industry throughout the world is of such a character that eventually, without some kind of world government, private corporations will be more powerful than individual countries. They will be totally out of control.

For example, what country in the world, the United States included, could control Standard Oil today? No country. Even if the United States moved to tackle it, as it has tried to do from time to time on an anti-trust basis, their tentacles are so worldwide that even if you struck at the head the tentacles would still continue to exist and to operate. For that and other reasons, because of the scale of modern industry, the fact that it is not economic in some industries to operate within the confines of even the largest European state, it is necessary to move, for certain purposes, towards a higher level of sovereignty, to transfer sovereignty upwards towards a higher level which will embrace an area big enough to be relevant for the purposes of modern industry, modern technology and other factors of that kind. However, we also need, and are beginning to recognise that we need, to develop sovereignty downwards. We need to create a situation in which people can run their own affairs at a certain level and for certain purposes with inalienable rights which cannot be taken from them by the State.

Debate adjourned.

The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 25th June, 1970.