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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 8 Nov 1972

Vol. 263 No. 6

European Communities Bill, 1972: Committee Stage (Resumed).

SECTION 3.
Debate resumed on amendment No. 7:
In subsection (1), page 3, line 16, before "make" to insert ", with the prior approval of each House of the Oireachtas,".
—(Deputy Tully).

Before Questions I was dealing with the right of a Member of Parliament to speak in Parliament. Unless Parliament can be used for this purpose, then the whole function of Parliament falls by the wayside. This is relevant to the views expressed by Deputy Enright, with whom I sympathise very sincerely, in relation to the situation of a particular industry in the constituency he and I represent. We will perhaps have an opportunity of raising this particular matter more fully with the Minister on an appropriate occasion. We are dealing now with the serious aspects of this European Communities Bill. We are dealing, in particular, with the right of the House to discuss and debate regulations before they are made by the appropriate Minister. It has been suggested that a committee should be set up for this purpose to ensure that the regulation is consistent with the provision of the original Community directive which the regulation seeks to implement. The amendment further provides:

( ) Any Committee referred to in the foregoing subsection shall have power

(a) to examine and advise a Minister of State and Irish Members of the European Parliament on all EEC Commission proposals prior to decisions thereon being taken by the Council of Ministers.

Of the EEC.

Yes, the Council of Ministers of the EEC. Nobody could find fault with that. I would certainly prefer, instead of any committee advising and conveying its views prior to the action to be taken by the Council of Ministers, this House in Committee to express its opinion on all these matters.

Subsection (b) of the amendment provides:

(b) to decide whether any EEC directive (i.e. proposal which is not directly applicable) should be implemented by regulation under this Act or by new legislation.

It is extremely difficult for one not to subscribe to the idea of an amendment of this kind but I am afraid, and here I am giving the House the benefit of my own opinion and experience, that to restrict the right of Members of this House and to create what could be described as privileged Members of the House, would not be in the best interests of democracy.

There is no restriction in the amendment.

Does that mean that any Member of the House who volunteers to do so can walk in and participate in the business of the Committee?

He could raise it in other ways. He could raise it by means of parliamentary question, subsequently on the Adjournment or on Estimates. There is no restriction involved in this amendment on any procedures in the House. This is an additional procedure.

In my opinion, this will make a second-rate Deputy out of a Deputy who is not lucky enough to participate in such a committee.

The Deputy will have to support our proposals so.

It is very, very clear that the whole EEC set up is designed to restrict the rights of Parliament. Let us be cautious and careful that we do not further restrict our own rights as Members of this Parliament. The matter of examining and reporting on regulations and deciding whether new legislation will be required is something that should be debated in Parliament as a whole. It may be that the suggested committee may make recommendations and report back to the House and discussion may then take place——

That is envisaged in the amendment; any committee set up are responsible to the House.

This gives the members of the committee a superior position and destroys the equality of rights of Members of the House.

Equal lack of rights under this Bill.

I am inclined to agree with the Deputy. We all agree on the lack of rights. I do not want any of my rights to be discharged in Brussels; I want to discharge them in this House. Brussels will be no part of my constituency. I want to preserve the rights of this, as Deputy de Valera described it, sovereign authority. I want to preserve the rights of this Parliament as a sovereign authority. I do not want to see some Deputies brought into inner rooms to discuss EEC matters ad lib and other Deputies left out and dependent on getting reports back from the privileged Deputies on the committee. That is not democracy; it is curtailing the rights of Parliament, preventing Parliament from discharging its full responsibilities in regard to EEC matters.

I trust the Minister will see the point of view of Deputies who may be anxious to co-operate in every possible way in Parliament but who may not have the privilege, the capacity or the luck to be appointed or elected to or co-opted on to such a committee. In the case of certain committees of the House of Representatives in the US a notice is placed on the notice board inviting members of the House to participate in various committees but there is no restriction on any Congressman from actively participating in any committee because most of the debates take place in the House as a whole in committee.

To restrict a committee of this kind, dealing with such a wide and important range of topics affecting the social, moral, political and economic life of our people saecula saeculorum is too much to accept without probing deeply into it. That is why I say: do not restrict the rights of Members of Parliament to investigate every aspect of every regulation and piece of legislation and consider whether it is advisable or not. The advice and opinion of Deputies should be obtained because they come from the grass roots of the community and speak with authority on industry and agriculture and on all aspects of life in their areas. The Deputy is the only link between the people and the Parliament. His voice stops here and it must be relayed by the link between here and Brussels. It is therefore vital that the main link of Members of the Irish Parliament should be kept intact. That is why any move to restrict the right of Members of Parliament from discussing or questioning any decision or directive or regulation or say it should be done in secret or in camera, should be questioned in public.

I hope we are not entering into a period in this country which might eventually lead to what we might describe as "Iron Curtain law" in which the elected representative is squeezed out, the press denied the right of attendance and in which you have a consideration of legislation behind closed doors where the public have no means of being acquainted with the proceedings of a confidential committee. I warn Parliament that this is the one opportunity they will have and I ask the Minister in the interests of democracy not to tie up Parliament seriously in a matter of this kind. It is too deep a matter. We are now only entering EEC: give free expression and deliberation and give freedom to the Parliament elected by the people so that they may be as constructive as possible. We are joining in accordance with the people's wishes: there is nothing any of us can do to keep us out but what we can do is help the country to go in with credit and distinction so as to influence Europe for the better. That is what we all want. That will not be done by reducing or minimising the rights of Parliament to legislate so far as possible.

I hope that the serious considerations—and they are very serious— of preserving the voice and rights of Parliament will be safeguarded as far as is humanly possible. Parliament must be sovereign. If it sheds its responsibilities and hands them over to others it also sheds its sovereignty. For that reason there is grave danger that in years to come there will be a lack of interest in committees unless it is kept alive by Members of Parliament. I cannot sufficiently emphasise how vital it is for Members of our Parliament in EEC to regard the voice of Parliament as the voice of the Irish people by which we can advise and assist and express our views. This will be more effective if it comes from Parliament as a whole rather than from a committee set up under Parliament. I hope the Minister will seriously consider this aspect of the matter. I am sorry that in the case of such a vital Bill as this greater interest is not taken by all Members of the House. This is one matter which affects the future of every Member of the House. Now is the time to talk. If we do not talk now let us remain silent hereafter, perhaps for ever.

We have heard a most moving oration from Deputy Flanagan and one can understand his fears but I would ask him to reflect very carefully, and I believe if he does he will find that the only way we can preserve the right to criticise and the right to influence is to have a proper parliamentary committee here to deal with European affairs.

This Bill is sounding the death knell of the Dáil. Both amendments seek to muffle that death knell. Deputy Flanagan is also concerned at hearing that death knell being sounded. I would urge upon the House and the Government not to go any further in relation to Community legislation than is absolutely necessary and to leave to this House and the organs of this House every effective power which they have the right to exercise.

The Bill as drafted takes far more away from this House than is necessary under the European Treaties and, as Deputy Bruton said in moving his amendment, by weakening the powers of this House and the other House, by weakening the right of public representatives in Ireland to make their contribution to and to offer their criticism of Community activities, the Commissioner from Ireland on the Commission and any Minister from Ireland sitting on the Council of Ministers will be thereby weakened in any contribution he can make or any influence he might seek to exert in the European Communities.

We are a very small country. We will have only ten members of the European Parliament. We will have only one member sitting in the ministerial institutions. There may be some more favourable vote for the smaller countries than for the larger ones. Nevertheless, we are only one small voice in this very large world. We need every voice that can speak up, every influence which we can bring to bear and that influence can best be exerted by having some control and some opportunity for this Parliament to express itself.

As I said last night, even when we cannot control or cannot change a decision we, nevertheless, have a clear obligation to the people who sent us here to understand what the Community is doing, to understand its regulations, its proposals and to be in the position, even if we cannot effect a change in them, to explain them to our own people. We are not yet in that position and are not likely to get into that position if we do not have some form of committee in this assembly.

The report of the working party examining the problem of the enlargement of the powers of the European Parliament known as the Vedel Report, deals with the links between the national parliaments and the European Parliament and it is proper for us to recall that the parliaments of each of the other member states of the EEC operate effective, worthwhile committee systems. We are unique in not having committees to deal with several different aspects of State activity. If this Parliament, for instance, had an industrial committee dealing with industrial problems we would not have experienced the frustration of Deputy Enright today when he was endeavouring to raise a matter crucial to over 150 families in his own constituency, dealing with the closing down of a factory in his constituency.

Deputy Flanagan said that everybody in this Parliament must have an equal right to raise their problems. On many problems, as Deputy Flanagan knows, at the moment we have an equal non-right. There are hundreds of unanswered questions on the Order Paper. There are 101 other problems that individually we all want to raise but our present procedures do not enable us to raise them. If we had a committee system at least some of our problems could be processed in the committee, even when they could not be taken here on the floor. It is a very rare occasion when we have all Members of the House present or even more than 50 per cent or even more than 20 of them present. While I sympathise with the notion that Deputy Flanagan has that it would be wrong to have a committee from which people would be barred, from which persons would be excluded or prevented from having their say, we must face the realities of this Parliament, as others have. We are not working effectively because our present rules and procedures prevent us from raising the issues crucial to our constituents and to the electorate and this is breeding a contempt for the whole parliamentary and democratic process which will have very serious repercussions unless we as a Parliament tackle this problem. We are now presented with a challenge and an opportunity in European affairs to establish the first worth while working committee.

The Vedel Report states that it is legitimate and democratic that national parliaments should try to bring their influence to bear within the Community. They recommend that the committees in the individual member states should become involved directly with the European Parliament so that the members of those committees and the parliaments in turn would be better acquainted with the problems of the Community at national level and they could also convey more effectively the views of their own national citizens at the European level. This, therefore, emphasises the need for the kind of committee which is referred to in the excellent amendment by Deputy Bruton.

Last night the Minister was rather carping in his criticism of many matters. Like so many people when they are in that mood, he can be incorrect. He suggested there was a conflict between the motion which had been tabled by Deputy Cosgrave and myself and the amendment proposed by Deputy Bruton. I suspect that the Minister had been guilty of the same offence with which he had charged others, to wit, that he had not read the resolution and the amendment because, far from there being any conflict between them, they are compatible with one another and, in fact, one supplements and is essential to the other.

The motion suggests that a select committee, consisting of 14 Members of this House, be joined with a select committee, consisting of six Members of the Seanad, be appointed to constitute a standing joint committee on European affairs, to examine the draft regulations, directives and decisions and other proposals and acts of the institutions of the European Communities and to report thereon to the House. In the motion it was also suggested—and this, I think, would meet one of the points raised by Deputy Flanagan — that the committee which would be 20 in number, would have the right to co-opt five other Members from time to time who are concerned with particular problems, so that they could be brought in. We might, in fact, operate a system on the committee such as operates in European parliaments and in the Council of Europe which would enable any Member of the House to go to the committee, not merely be there to hear but also to contribute to the debate. Such Members might not have a vote on the committee as such unless they were to be co-opted but I would say that most Deputies would be much comforted by the opportunity to address the committee on a matter which related to their own constituencies.

The amendment of Deputy Bruton very clearly leaves open the form which any committee would take. It refers to "any committee of the Dáil", leaving it for the Dáil to determine what the powers of the committee should be. It could even be a committee of the whole House. What Deputy Bruton identifies in his amendment are some very crucial matters. First of all, he is suggesting machinery whereby within 21 sitting days of an order being made the order could be annulled or amended in this House. That is a considerable improvement on what is offered in the Bill whereby up to two years could elapse between the making of a regulation and its ultimate annulment and no provision is made for its amendment. We consider that there are certainly a number of grey areas in many regulations to which it would be fitting for this House to make an amendment. When amendments can be made within the law and within the obligations of the European Community, it is proper that this House should have an opportunity much sooner than two years after the regulation is made, to make them. Admittedly the period might be shorter. A regulation can be considered at any time within a year following that in which it is made. That means that at least one year elapses, but, as Deputy Tully pointed out, this could grow into two years and that is not a very safe position to have.

Deputy Bruton also suggested that this committee should not merely be dealing with accomplished facts but should also be looking to the future and offering opinions and assistance on proposals coming from the Commission and the Council of Ministers. His third suggestion was that a decision as to the method to be adopted to implement directives, whether it be by way of regulation or legislation, should be taken by some authority larger than an individual Minister of State. He therefore suggested that a committee of the whole House which under our Standing Orders, would, have to be impartial and have to represent all parties, would be a better group to make the decision than an individual Minister.

It is no personal criticism of any Minister to say that all Ministers tend to opt for regulations rather than legislation. It is less troublesome. It does not involve a debate, although it certainly does not seem to avoid delay. There are many regulations covering a wide number of fields which could be made today to the benefit of the nation, and which are not being made. Sometimes civil servants can take longer to make up their minds than legislators. There is a tendency to opt for regulations. We will not merely be doing serious damage to our parliamentary system but doing damage to the whole outlook of our people towards the new world which is opening to them in Europe if we do not involve them. Involvement means the fullest possible scope for public representatives to offer their opinions on future proposals as well as established facts.

The amendments we are now discussing—we are discussing two together— have one thing in common, that is, a desire to preserve the greatest possible power for the people's representatives here to criticise the activities of the Community and to offer the views of the people of Ireland so that the Community will have the benefit of those views before making their decisions. We are also asking that this power should be kept in our Parliament so that the ten Members of Parliament who go to Brussels will be better informed. I do not think it would be wise to send ten Members of our Parliament to the European Parliament who, when they arrived back here, would find that the Dáil and Seanad never discussed European affairs or never offered criticism of European affairs. It is also undesirable that there should be no Parliamentary thought on European matters while the ten Members of the European Parliament were away at meetings of the European Assembly or of the various committees.

Unless we have a permanent committee sitting—I would say certainly twice a month or possibly weekly—we will have a very serious void and, if we have that void, the people of Ireland will find themselves left outside when decisions are being made in Europe. Where I think the Labour Party amendment errs is that perhaps it is asking too much to ask that all regulations should be considered in this House before they are made. Should that proposal be adopted the danger is that voluminous regulations or draft regulations will be tabled and, after a while, Members will lose the capacity even to read through the list and they will not be able to identify those regulations which involve some new departure in policy from regulations simply dealing with routine matters.

I would suggest, therefore, that a committee with a very useful and working secretariat would be able to sift through all the drafts, all the proposals and all the regulations, pending or made, and having identified the ones that mattered and discussed them with the Members of the House, we could then have a very useful debate here once a month or thereabouts on exactly what was happening in Europe. If we could agree on the principle of maintaining the largest possible amount of parliamentary control I believe we would be doing a very useful service for our people. The Fine Gael Party will be supporting the Labour Party amendment because it endeavours to keep some control within this Parliament. We think that perhaps it goes too far, but the principle is so crucial, and there are so many different ways of preserving Parliamentary control, that anything that seeks to protect our people against the dead hand of the Fianna Fáil Government, who are trying to put their hand across the mouth of the public representatives of this country, is a good thing. We will vote for anything which keeps the Fianna Fáil hand off the Irish mouth.

I should like to support these amendments on the principle on which the Deputies have based their arguments, that is, the attempt to keep some authority for this House in the situation of having minority representation in the European Parliament and the European Community. It is very hard to understand how the Government cannot see the wisdom of the arguments put forward, and how the Minister cannot see the rationale for accepting that there should not be any avoidable diminution in the powers of the Deputies of this House.

I must confess that I have very little use for the parliamentary process as it has been operated in most of the Western democracies over the past half century, but there are some uses for the system. Probably the most important factor was the right of individual minority opinion to be given expression even in spite of the fact that it happened to be a minority opinion. As somebody who has held a minority opinion here for many years on a number of occasions I have been pleased with the practice of the Government having to put orders on the table of the House, and Deputies having the right to question orders in a specific period. This has been most useful. At least it ensured the right to a discussion and the right to a debate even though it might be a very limited protest or a very limited debate. We could voice a minority opinion and there was always the possibility that it might appeal to those who had the power to change the legislation or the proposal, or that eventually it might win more support if not here in the House, in the country, presuming it got to the general public and the electorate generally.

There is no doubt there will be a very considerable diminution in our power now that we propose to join the European Community. All three Parties will now feel for the first time what it is like to be in a minority in a Parliament which will probably do what it wants to do anyway, no matter what the minority may think or say. The majority hold their opinions, as the majority in this House have always held their opinions, because they believe them to be the correct opinions, the right attitudes, the right actions at that particular time and no matter how persuasive or compelling the arguments of the minority may be, if they have arrived at these conclusions, our minority within the European Parliament is going to be about as ineffectual in changing the mass attitudes of the majority parties within the Parliament as have been minority voices, such as my own and others in this House, over the years in changing the major parties in their attitudes and decisions.

At the same time, I can see no case whatever for yielding up any part of the right to public debate and discussion upon any issue whatever which affects our people as a whole. While we may have little effect on the end result of the discussion, there is always this other factor involved in a debate in this House, that we are not really talking to one another, few as we usually are in this House, but we are talking in the context of a situation in which all the national newspapers, many of the provincial newspapers, television and radio—this is our nexus with the people—have access to whatever is said here. Although quite obviously one can never predict what is likely to get to the public through this very powerful communications medium, there is always a possibility that something worthwhile may get through to the electorate, to the people as a whole, and in that way there will be the continuous possibility that we may win support from the community for any protests which we may wish to make on their behalf to the European Parliament and that the power of that protest of our people can be of some support to those Deputies who represent us in the European Parliament.

That is a particularly important consideration and again I support Deputy Flanagan's plea for this House as being the most important debating forum rather than committees. I have no great objection to committees but the right of the individual Deputy is a very important right. As he said, it does not matter of what intellectual calibre they may be or what professional or technical ability they may have, they have the rather wonderful privilege of having been elected by their peers in our society to come here and talk and do their best on their behalf. That right, that authority, that power is being mitigated to some extent by the attitude of the Government in this Bill. No serious case has been made and no justification has been offered as to why we should concede one iota of the authority or power of this House, tiny and all as it may be, small as it certainly is and limited as it certainly is going to be in the years ahead. This is an occasion on which any authority we derive from the public collectively should, if it is possible to do so, be enlarged, enhanced, extended, increased rather than in any way reduced or minimised.

The voice of our people as expressed by us is the one last criticism that is left to us in the situation of a great Parliament of people within which there will be others fighting for their own special national rights, and the Minister must know well, and know very much better than any of us do, from his own negotiations and his own dealings in the run-up to the Economic Community, the formation of the Economic Community and our admission to it, quite how unimportant is the voice of a tiny offshore island like ours in the deliberations of the great western European communities and in their consideration of what is best for western Europe. He more than any others must know how little it will matter to them whether a factory closes down in Deputy Flanagan's constituency, in the Minister's constituency or in any of the other areas all over the country where these tragic happenings are taking place.

How could that matter in the context of a debate on shifts of power in the Ruhr or in the great industrial areas of Italy, France or anywhere else? We are the only people who can be said to have a serious concern, and it is our responsibility to have a serious concern, for our own people in every corner of the country. We should guard very jealously indeed the tiny shred of authority which I think is now left to us and if it is possible for these amendments to be accepted by the Minister, I think he should do what he can to get the Government to accept them.

I am afraid that, as I said earlier, I do not have much faith in the effective authority of Parliament. As I have seen it here over the years, it does not matter very much what the Opposition think, and within the Opposition it does not matter very much what the minority within that Opposition think. Effective power it seems to me, has always not even stemmed from the majority party here, not even from the total Cabinet, but from an oligarchy within the Cabinet and, for many years, from an individual, or at most two or three individuals, within that Cabinet.

I do not believe that the elaborate facade of the 130 of us here who debate legislation represents the power within this House. True power, in fact, lies and has lain with a handful of men during the years, and that is simply a microcosm of what is likely to happen within the European Parliament. All that we can retain is our right to do what we can to the best of our ability, a right to protest, a right to criticise, a right to retain where possible and a right to reject on the part of our people something which could be in the interest of the European Communities but at the same time could in some way be damaging, or indeed disastrous, to our people simply because considerations in a particular issue do not carry the weight of those considerations as expressed by this House acting as representatives of the total community in this country. I ask the Minister to give very serious consideration to these points.

I sympathise with some of the sentiments expressed by Deputy Browne. The democratic system has already in it a large measure of what one might call indirection, in that the people elect the Parliament and the Parliament elect the Government and within that Parliament there is the party system which involves a dilution of popular control beyond what is in theory, and I believe in practice, desirable. In the Irish context, the system has worked less well than elsewhere because somehow or other conventions have grown up here under which the Government seem more immune to the pressure of public opinion, expressed through Parliament, than anywhere else, certainly than in the system of our nearest neighbour, of whom in the matter of Parliamentary procedure we are naturally very conscious because our institutions derive from theirs much of their shape and form and, indeed, many of the traditions, though we would like sometimes to pretend they do not.

In the British Parliament there is a degree of responsiveness of the Government to Parliament. There is a sufficient effervescence within the parties accepted as a normal, natural and proper element of the parliamentary party system which we have not here because convention has tended to rule it out. So the Executive here have tended to be freer of control and more arbitrary in their acts. That makes us sensitive to anything which will increase the power of the Executive.

Given the weakness of the European Parliament at this time, the lack of any apparent progress towards improving that position and the lack of any great conviction in the summit communiqué or in the attitude of the Irish Government at the Summit as recounted to this House by the Taoiseach, Members of this Parliament can be forgiven for expressing a certain concern at the idea that the Government, in matters of great importance, can, without any adequate provision or prior consultation with the representatives of this country in this Parliament, or in the European Parliament, direct that a member of the Executive of this country, acting presumably after agreement among the Members of the Executive or Government as a whole, and in concert with the members of the Executives of other countries, take decisions which when they come to be implemented will not be amenable to any consideration in this House or by a committee of this House, if the Executive here decide to table them at particular periods of the year when, under the inadequate provisions of section 4, they will not come before the House.

Even in cases where the Constitution of the EEC permits and is designed to permit a measure of tolerance to the member country, in the application of a particular decision, where it takes the form of a directive indicating the lines to be taken by legislation in that country but not laying it down in detail, this is clearly inadequate and I think we have to do better than this.

The amendment in Deputy Bruton's name is very well designed to do this. It is a particularly well thought-out amendment because it manages to fit within its compass a number of different useful concepts which should commend themselves to the House. I am not, as Deputy Ryan has said, enamoured of the Labour Party's amendment because it seems to me they are proposing something that would not readily be workable. If everything to be done had to be adopted by this House, and bearing in mind the vast quantity of purely technical legislation involved, the House would be clogged up with matters with which it would not wish to be concerning itself. What is important is the right of this House to bring before it any matter which it is concerned about.

Apparently Deputy FitzGerald does not know of the many motions which come before the House and are passed without comment.

Indeed I do. I am very unhappy with the inadequacies of the present system, with the inadequate research facilities available to Opposition parties and even to Government Deputies. It means that things come forward in the form of orders and regulations at present which are not sufficiently closely inspected and are passed without scrutiny even when there are points in them which should be raised. I agree with that.

Some of them do not have to be raised because they are trivial.

No matter how trivial they are the House has a right to look at them should somebody here decide they are not trivial. It seems to me that the best way to tackle that is to ensure that a committee of this House are given the opportunity to examine such legislation and to sift through those things which seems to be matters of policy and those which seem to be technical, so as to help and guide this House and to ensure that at least those matters which a well-equipped body of Members of the House, with a good secretariat, decide are matters of importance will come before the House. In the process of that scrutiny, should there be a division of opinion, should there be individual members of that committee who believe that some matters which other members consider to be trivial are not trivial, these members should be able to bring them before this House; should there be some Members of this House who in reading the reports of the committee or who have attended the committee as part of the audience believe there are matters which are not trivial, then such Members must be entitled to bring them before the House. This is the kind of procedure we need.

There are, obviously, different ways of doing this and it seems to me that the method proposed by Deputy Bruton is ingenious and that it would be effective. It covers the needs of the situation. On the other hand— perhaps I do not understand it correctly—the Labour Party amendment requires that prior approval of the House be given as an essential element before a regulation can be made——

By the Minister.

Of course. That is my understanding of it. It requires that before a Minister here can make a regulation giving effect to any directive, the House must approve of it positively, regardless of how trivial it my be or how little is the element of policy in it. That seems to me to go beyond what is necessary. We want a safeguard clause that sieves what comes back in the form of directives and we want to ensure that the House will be alerted and given a chance to debate anything that is of importance. I can see there is a divergence of views on this. Deputy Bruton's amendment, which is necessarily rather long and rather more complex, meets the needs of the situation.

Earlier in the debate I said our aim must be to make the European Parliament effective. I think the Minister muttered something at the time that this was a bit optimistic and that it was somewhat in the future. Perhaps it was Deputy de Valera or someone sitting behind the Minister who made that suggestion. All I was saying was that we should not become so devoted to setting up procedures here to ensure adequate consideration of these matters, we should not become so absorbed in this, that we might take our eyes away from the main principle of having an adequate legislative system in Europe so that legislation is not by members of the Executive of member Governments but by the people who have been elected for the purpose.

I realise it will be some years before that comes into existence but in the meantime we must try to ensure that, pending the implementation of such a system, we do our best to fill the gap. I realise that even when a European Parliament is operating effectively it will continue to be of vital importance that this Parliament should have a right to express its views on the way Community directives are to be implemented. It would not be a bad thing if, to supplement the work of the European Parliament, this Parliament had the opportunity in matters of importance of considering draft proposals before they go to the Council of Ministers.

At this stage, given the inadequacies of the European Parliament, of its powers and its methods of election, it is important for us to ensure that matters relating to indirect legislation by way of regulation should be brought before the House and that this House should play an active role in considering whether they are necessary. On those grounds I commend Deputy Bruton's amendment to the House.

Perhaps the Minister would comment on the proposals. I think it is about time we heard his views.

I agree with Deputy Browne that we should preserve as much of the powers of this Parliament as is possible. Last night the House accepted the decision to join the European Communities, to change the Constitution; and the Act of Accession gives within a certain area of activity powers to the institutions of Europe which we can no longer decide on here. Regulations will be made which will be directly applicable in the member states. At the moment the development of the European institutions is such that the Council of Ministers is the deciding body. In theory there is a weighted voting position there, but in actual practice they do not take decisions that are against the vital interests of any member states——

As seen by the executors of those States.

It is impossible for Parliament to be useful unless somebody can lay down some basic facts without interruption or distraction.

The Minister is extraordinarily sensitive.

For a small nation that is a more powerful position than would obtain in the weighted voting position or in a position where the Parliament was fully developed, as Deputy FitzGerald wants. The present decision-making situation is not to our disadvantage. The Minister taking part in the decision-making process will be responsible to this Parliament. The implementation of directives and decisions of the institutions which are not directly applicable here will be implemented by whatever method is chosen and we are seeking powers to have this done by delegated legislation. Let me remark in passing that it would be inappropriate to the concept of delegated legislation to have it amended rather than rejected by the House.

To put the matter in perspective let me give the following example. The annual number of regulations made here by a Minister to implement Community directives would be about 20. Last year we had 350 statutory instruments and there was not too much worry about them in the House. If Deputies want to measure it in this way, they could say we are going from 350 instruments to 370. What bothers Deputy Bruton and other Deputies who want a committee is in regard to the power given to a Minister. They would like to have a committee that would come in on this power of the Minister, but Deputy Flanagan is equally worried about the power that would be given to members of such a committee.

I do not think we are talking about the power taken by the institutions of Europe. I think we should have a committee of the House. After listening to Deputy Haughey and Deputy Flanagan I take the point that this committee should not limit the powers of Deputies who are not on the committee. The idea I had was that a committee should make it possible for this Parliament to make the full use of its powers. I do not think we would set up the committee under this legislation. I think we should do it by way of a motion and by whatever procedures this House may set up. The committee should have an expert and adequate secretariat so that they can advise the House on the volume of legislation coming from the European institutions and point out which item is a policy matter that can affect vital interests. This will require a fairly high level, active and full-time secretariat. The whole concept will have to be to help Deputies in the House to know what is going on and where they can have an influence. They should not be excluded from consideration of legislation of the European institutions.

There were 350 statutory instruments last year and it is suggested that they be laid before the House for examination and objection if people wish to object. The method we propose is stronger. Under the system of laying them before the House they can pass unnoticed, as I am sure happened in the case of many of the 350 last year. Under the proposal in section 4 the Minister would have to come in with legislation, and the House would go through the whole process of legislation on the statutory instruments put out by Ministers during the year. I accept the point made by Deputy Tully that the end of the following year is too far away if the regulation is made in January. My answer is that the ordinary processes are available. Deputies can put down a question on the Adjournment, they can raise the matter at Question time, there is private legislation or Private Members' motions. The making of a regulation will be published in Iris Oifigiúil. If we accept Deputy Tully's way of leaving it for 21 days then, having passed that process, we could not choose any other process. I think our method is the stronger method. I take the point that given motions on the Adjournment, Question Time, Private Members' motions and private legislation there is something to be said for trying to have the legislation dealing with the ministerial regulations brought nearer to the event of the regulations. Deputies will appreciate from what has been going on in the House over the last few days how slow it would be if the Minister had to make all the regulations at the end of the year. There might be 70 regulations to be made between now and the end of the year. We would not limit it to having the legislation at the end of that year. It might suit if we had the legislation confirming regulations coming into the House within a year or six months of the making of the regulation.

Within 12 months of the regulation?

Yes. I am putting a suggestion to meet the objection that Deputy Tully has that there could be a delay of two years if regulations were made, say, in January of this year but the legislation might not be dealt with until December of next year.

I would like to comment on that but I will not interrupt.

I put that as a suggestion, because I believe that having to have the process of legislation brought in by the Minister in a positive way and having the House debate it is a stronger safeguard. After a time the enthusiasm will be gone and matters will be left to a small number of people, but if the Minister comes in with legislation everybody will be aware of it and can come in and debate it. If it is a matter of laying it before the House and waiting to catch something and put down a motion about it, this would be slower.

What is wrong with that procedure? It has been used for years here.

The other procedure is stronger. I am concerned about the effectiveness of the procedure. The whole discussion has been on the basis that whatever will be done in Europe will be to our disadvantage. At least the vast majority of the regulations which will have to be made by Ministers will be to enable advantages and benefits to accrue to our people.

I should like to believe that.

There is a strong argument for being in a position to fit in quickly with directives made by ministerial regulations. The arguments are all in favour of being able to implement quickly the European legislation which will have passed through with this provision of seeking concensus or unanimity in the Council of Ministers.

To go back now to the amendments, the method under section 4 is better. There is more debate and a fuller examination. Motions in the House are available. Private legislation can be brought to the House. We have Question Time and matters can be raised on the Adjournment and Private Members' Motions can be put down at the time of the making of the regulations. If regulations are made when the Dáil is not in session there are provisions for bringing the Dáil back if the regulations upset a sufficient number of people. The actual watchdog effect of legislation being promoted by the Minister is much stronger. Where there is an area for improvement we must consider the time lag. So far as a committee is concerned, I accept that there should be a committee but I do not think that Deputy O.J. Flanagan's arguments are invalid. The committee should not include Members of this House. They should be there to help the Members. I suggest the Deputy should withdraw this amendment. Under the procedures of the House we can set about creating an effective committee to meet the tasks which we know must be undertaken.

I am in favour of a committee but we must be reasonable about this. Possibly the method of selection of committee members may be open to question. If we look around the House and see how many Deputies are interested in the Bill itself, we have the answer to the number of people who might be interested in committees. Most of us are stuck with committees. Deputy O.J. Flanagan's point about people being selected because they are well in with the party leader is not valid. The only reason we are on committees is that we may know something about the subject concerned, and we may be the only people available who want to do a bit of work around the House.

It is quite easy for people to stay away from this House for a long time and then complain that they are not getting the facilities to which they are entitled. In fairness to those working hard on committees we should make it clear that there is no question of being lapdogs at all. People who go on committees are those who want to go on committees and who are available to go on them. Many of us have been put on committees which we would much prefer not to have to go on. There are no kudos for sitting in a room debating matters affecting the other Members of the House while some of those Members are away at race meetings or doing their own work at home.

It can be said that we might have a special day on which the whole House will turn into a committee. Is it suggested that the whole House should do as we are doing here now? That would mean that Deputies would be allowed to talk as long as they wished. If that were so, a day would not be much use; we would need a whole year to allow some of the Deputies to continue talking as much as they liked. Without being offensive about it, I feel that the committee system is a good system but we must remember that the committee are people who are prepared to do their work and even if we left it open to everybody in this House there might be extreme difficulty unless particular persons were named on the committee. There might be extreme difficulty in getting enough people into the House to discuss some committee matter without making special efforts to do so.

I can see the points raised by Deputy Haughey and Deputy O. J. Flanagan about the necessity of giving everybody an opportunity of being involved. As Members of this House, we are all entitled to be involved. Members of the Fianna Fáil Party are also entitled to claim that they have the right to be Parliamentary Secretaries and Ministers. Members of the Fianna Fáil Party are not allowed into discussions with the Ministers. Deputy O. J. Flanagan must be aware of this. He was a member of a previous government. As Parliamentary Secretary, he must have known that there were places where his colleagues would not be allowed to discuss matters with him because they were not on the same standing as he was. We can only do the best we can. We should try to have a committee system. But it may be felt that following discussion of the committee—and this is where our particular amendment comes in—we should come back and debate it with an informed opinion being put across, not by the Minister but by the various members of the committee who have discussed the matter. If the idea is that the matter can be tossed around, that might be the solution.

Without throwing out our suggestion, the Minister is, in fact, throwing cold water on it by suggesting that this idea of having a matter discussed would take up a lot of time. We do not want that. At present we lay matters before the House. That is the procedure. Many of the matters that go before the House could be raised here by way of motion, but few of them are. I brought the first motion to refer back a ministerial order which was ever taken in this House about 1956 or a little later when Deputy Childers was Minister for Transport and Power. It referred to a Bord na Móna pensions scheme. We had a good debate and eventually the Minister got his way because he had the Government behind him.

The Minister has said that we could raise these matters at Question Time. The Minister knows what happens. The Minister mentioned raising matters on the Adjournment. We all know what happened to the Deputy who tried to raise an important matter on the Adjournment yesterday and today. I do not blame the Chair for this. A private Bill was mentioned. We have been talking today about two private Bills in which the Fine Gael Party are interested. There is no hope of having them taken. When can we have a discussion on a motion? Some of the motions are on the Order Paper for three years. None of the solutions offered by the Minister are solutions to the problem before us this evening. I wish they were. The Minister also says that the discussion of motions would take much time. Not necessarily all the regulations which will come here as ministerial orders from the EEC are going to be detrimental to the country. I believe, however, we should reserve the right, in the event of one or more of them being against the interests of the country because of the way in which it is suggested it should be operated, to say: "No, it should not be done that way." That is where the Minister and the Opposition differ. I would say that perhaps out of the 20 maybe four or five would fit into that category. We should be entitled to debate it not two years, not a year afterwards. It is idle for the Minister to say this can be debated more fully under the suggestion in the section. You cannot do that, because if the regulation is put into operation and has been in operation for 12 or 18 months the people will have come to accept it whether it is good, bad or indifferent. You are then late in attempting to change it.

Without trying to tie any Minister's hands, I think this is the right of this House, in view of the fact that, in my opinion, and in the opinion of my party, we are handing over a tremendous amount of power which we had to an institution in Europe. Having done that the very least we are entitled to is the right to interpret certain orders in the best way for this country.

The amendments may not be perfect; they may not be the answer; but the Minister has not come up with a suggestion which fills the bill either. If the Minister says he is prepared to look at this to see if it can be improved before Report Stage then I, on behalf of the Labour Party, will withdraw the amendment which is down in our names. If he is not prepared to do that I will divide the House on this, because if we do not do this we are handing over lock, stock and barrel the authority this House has had up to now to make its own laws. We are not prepared to make a fight for even the little bit that is being left to us and we will not stand for that.

When the Minister speaks of a committee to deal with orders, regulations, et cetera does he consider that the House, as it is sitting at present, is a reasonably good committee? If because of our present parliamentary set-up this House is not considered to be satisfactory in disposing of public and parliamentary business, that is not the fault of the majority of us who are here. It is the fault of the parliamentary system. There would not have been this extraordinary backlog of work if there had been longer sittings. Unfortunately there was a holyday last week on which the House did not sit. When there is pressure of work there is no reason why this House should not sit four days a week. Farmers have to work seven days a week. For that reason I do not accept the excuse that there is not sufficient time to dispose of parliamentary business. This is the price we must pay for being a democracy. We must express our views, we must exchange opinions and we must make parliament effective by using it. We are sent here to express the views of the people. I want to put it to the Minister, through you, Sir, that if there is an important order or regulation to be made concerning the EEC's sugar beet quota, concerning the import or the export of wheat, concerning the dumping of foreign wheat into this country or if cloth exports are to be restricted by regulation, I want to be in a position on behalf of the industrial workers in my constituency, on behalf of the sugar beet growers, on behalf of the workers in the beet factory in Carlow and elsewhere, to know about it and I want to put forward their views and the views of those interested in that sector of agriculture. Discussing an order after it has been made will be of no use. We had the case of the EEC's sugar quota. The regulation that was made caused serious alarm to beet growing farmers and those engaged in sugar factory employment last year.

Only because the Government failed to explain it to them.

The farmers showed concern. There was threatened redundancy in the sugar beet factories.

If this amendment is not accepted there will be no question of our using Parliament for the purpose of discussing what we consider to be a restriction on the right of the farmer to grow beet or a restriction on the right of the management of Carlow or any other factory producing sugar for the EEC pool of sugar. We were faced with a problem of that kind this year. When it comes to reviewing the sugar quotas, which are of concern to all beet growing constituencies, when we have the wheat order and other cereal regulations, there will be no point in discussing them 12 months after the orders and regulations are made. Secondly, there will be no point in discussing them behind closed doors. Parliament is the place. I would like to hear what kind of committees Deputy Bruton has in mind. Does he mean these committees to be in private or does he want the press, radio and television people brought in if necessary? Are the committees to be in private? Are the officers of the House to be present? Is there to be an official record, as there is in the case of the Committee of Public Accounts? I am against hole-and-corner committees. This is the only opportunity I have had of saying that. This is too important a matter to allow certain privileged Members to be in a position to have information that is not available to other Members of the House.

I can see Deputy Tully's point of view about committees. I claim, as one of the longest serving Members in this House today, that I never sought an appointment on any committee. I never asked any Member to support me. I never sought selection. I am on no committee and I have no desire to be on any committee but the position is that there is a tug-of-war for nearly all of these committees and that is wrong. It winds up that who ever has the best "pull" and the best influence is on the committee. When it comes to discussing important aspects of EEC regulations, which may affect every Deputy in every constituency in some way, this House in committee ought to be the means of dealing with the orders, directives and regulations.

If there is to be a select committee I presume that the Members will not be handpicked by the Minister for Foreign Affairs. I presume they will be appointed by the various parties and that there will be a seat for an Independent Deputy if there is one in the next Dáil, or even 15 Independent Deputies, as happened some years ago. No Deputy should have to solicit the support of his party colleagues to be appointed to such a committee. That is a wrong position for any Member of Parliament to be in. If we are to have the entire EEC business done through committees it will eventually lead to disrespect for Parliament.

We already have people all over the country advocating an abstentionist policy. We want to preserve Parliament as the place in which the people's laws are carried out on their instructions. It must be Parliament for the people and by the people. It is difficult enough for us in present circumstances to advocate respect for Parliament throughout the country. There are people all over Europe, as well as in Ireland, anxious to pull down our parliamentary institutions. We will help those people if we create an atmosphere of silence and inactivity within Parliament. If Parliament is the institution in which every Deputy has the privilege of talking, provided he keeps within the bounds of order, you have democracy functioning 100 per cent. When you cannot have that you muzzle the people's representatives. This affects Deputies and their constituents.

Our job is to build up confidence in Parliament throughout the country. We are not doing that if we relinquish our rights as parliamentarians. We must have the machinery available by which we can look after the interests of our constituents. I am not happy about the volume of work which will be undertaken by certain privileged Deputies. It is regrettable that we can foresee a time in which Members of Parliament will be expressing thanks for being allowed to talk. This is not democracy functioning as I see it. If we want Parliament to be effective, when we are in Europe, the business of Europe must come to Parliament and be discussed in Parliament. Discussion of all the regulations and directives is vital if we are to maintain confidence in our institutions as at present established.

The more we weaken our institutions the worse it is for the community; the more we take away from Parliament the less respect people outside have for it and the more we silence those within Parliament the more deadened the feelings of the people outside become. We could not be discussing anything more vital than this. I hope my voice will be effective in driving home to everybody the importance of keeping Parliament free to be the medium by which we can talk, show our feelings and get work done.

Perhaps our present parliamentary system needs some improvement. The answer to that is that we have to work harder and work longer hours if we want to get the business done. It is no use saying we cannot overtake the European work when we cannot do our own work. There is no use saying that questions cannot be answered, that the private business and public business of this House cannot be done. It can be done if you have the proper system. The way to do that is to allow Parliament to function freely. Unless you have that we cannot describe ourselves as a democracy.

I appeal to the Minister if there is to be a committee appointed to have the quorum one more than half the Members of this House so that we can all participate in it. There are many who believe that a small committee gets work done quickly. That may be so but I do not think it is democratic. I do not believe it is the right way to do business for the public. I hope if such a committee is appointed that any Member of this House who wants to walk in to it and ask a question can do so and that he can participate in voting on such a committee.

So far the Minister's reply to the debate has been disappointing and there is an ominous implication in his approach to the very full and thoughtful case presented by the Opposition for the preservation of the rights of individual Deputies in this House. I say it is ominous for this reason: most of us who have spent most of our time in Opposition in this House could be forgiven for having a sense of much frustration because of our own impotence during the years to have implemented proposals or ideas which we considered might be of benefit to the community. We have not been able to influence the Government in any significant way on any of the questions on which most of us have spoken during our time here. Perhaps we could be forgiven for developing a sense of frustration to the extent that we might say this place is useless, that it is pointless coming into it or contributing to a debate, that it is pointless to express a point of view and that the best thing to do would be to eliminate this Parliament.

In saying that we would be echoing a sentiment that is widespread not only in this country but in many Western European countries in relation to what they consider to be the talking shops of Europe, as they are called by the Communists. As Deputy FitzGerald implied, Parliaments have transpired to be no more than talking shops and that the great basic idea of popular election—the idea whereby people with different views are returned to Parliament for the purpose of expressing their views from which can be got a consensus to create the kind of society for the benefit of all the people—has not worked.

For those of us who, as I say, have spent most of our lives in opposition, that attitude is understandable, but it is very dangerous that it should come from a Minister who has had absolute power in a number of important ministries in our society, for instance, Education, Industry and Commerce and Foreign Affairs. It is dangerous that he should have appeared to have developed a sense of disrespect, this sense of the impotence of this House and that he should imply that whatever power it has is unimportant, or at least that it need not be cherished to the extent that those of us in opposition are attempting to preserve it.

I agree with Deputy Flanagan that the Minister is subscribing to the general sentiment, not only in this country but in other Western European countries also, that our Parliaments are a very costly charade and that the bureaucrat is the important person. He is subscribing to the Communist idea of the democratic centralist approach whereby there are bureaucrats of one kind or another in the centre who decide for a Parliament that meets once a year, once in two years or once in five years and that there is no need for this hideous process of individuals coming from all parts of the country to express their points of view to the best of their ability. At any rate the implication is that there is no need for this process, that there is no virtue in having this assembly. The Minister has already caught this disease of the bureaucrat from his spell in Europe. He tells us that we can have a talented secretariat who will monitor the proposals going through concerning our country and that they will tell us from time to time that there is something we should keep an eye on, something that is worth debating because it might affect, for instance, our fisheries or the livelihood of our farmers or that it might affect the trade union movement. That would all be very helpful and all very pleasant, clean-cut and efficient in the computerised-type of society proposed in the EEC, but it does not happen to be democracy. It is not either parliamentary or representative democracy because the function of monitoring is the function of the elected representative.

The Minister spoke of 350 regulations that have gone through the House without question. In so far as I am concerned I have taken advantage of my power to question many regulations that have gone through. However, the important thing is not whether the powers were used but that we had them to use if we so wished.

It is no use having a post mortem debate on a decision taken already on our behalf. None of us can undo the damage of the decision taken bona fide. Let the Commissioner have our point of view and, then, armed with whatever support we can get for that point of view, he can make his final decision; but he would do so in the knowledge of having the full authority and the considered opinion of this Parliament.

I share Deputy Flanagan's view regarding committees. I have no objection to them but in my experience they are comprised of hand-picked people; and, even if they are not hand-picked they are not as effective or as efficient as is debate in this House. The Minister displayed a certain intolerance or implied criticism of us because of the 350 orders that have gone through without question. Can he tell us what he proposes to do about them? Is it his opinion that that indicates a significant defect in the process of Parliament? Does he propose to change this process? Does he consider it to be inefficient? Has he recommended that because it is inefficient we are failing in our duty to the community? Does he propose to do in respect of these many orders, the 350, what he now proposes to do with the 20 to which he refers? Why should one system be acceptable in respect of certain orders and a different system be indispensable to the Minister in respect of other orders? I should like to see a serious case made for what he calls the "stronger action". I do not understand the words "stronger action".

As I say, there is an implicit criticism of Deputies in this. In some way or other, because we did not criticise or debate these 350 motions, therefore, we must now change so that we may do our job correctly and properly. Why not introduce this system in relation to all these other orders? Should we not be made to do our job properly in respect of all these other orders as well? The Minister knows well that the speed at which changes take place makes it essential that if any Deputy in any of the parties feels that in some way or other the welfare of the people he represents is jeopardised by an order made by the Ministers in Europe, he should have the right to protest, to criticise, to analyse, to make his case, and that then, having done that, he has discharged his job as a Deputy.

The Minister made, in my view, a contradictory case on this issue. In the first part of his statement he said the Council of Ministers are not going to make any decision which is contrary to the vital interest of any State. I necessarily cannot believe that, but I know the Minister made it meaning it to be true. He then went on to say that the vast majority of the decisions made will be to our advantage. There is a difference between "a vast majority" and "no decision will be against the vital interest of any State". When he talks about the vast majority, he leaves a number of decisions which will not be to our advantage. He said so himself and these are the decisions we are interested in. These are the decisions which should be considered and discussed here and criticised, if necessary.

The Minister has told us we are justified in our insistence on our right to discuss any question we wish to discuss before any final decision is taken, because he has told us, in effect, that decisions will be taken in respect of Ireland which will not be to our advantage. It is for that reason that most of the 350 orders or reports to which he referred—in fact, I think I queried one of them myself in relation to the Department of Health last year —have followed debates, discussions, motions, or whatever other parliamentary device we have here for debate, which have taken place in this House, and we have done our best to see, to the extent that we can help it, that they will not be damaging to our constituents and to our people generally.

The situation in relation to the 20 orders which the Minister has in mind is quite different, and, therefore, far from retaining the controls and the safeguards which already exist here in relation to the 350 that he mentioned, if it were possible to do so, we should be asking for even greater, more powerful rights to protect the interests of our people in respect of the 20 to which he refers. This does not come completely as a surprise to me because I am afraid I have conceived the same disrespect for the parliamentary process; I have no belief now left in me at all that through the parliamentary process we are going to change fundamentally the structure of society. Whatever I might have believed earlier on, I do not believe that at all now. The only thing that surprises me is that I am now joined by such a distinguished, long-serving and experienced Member of Parliament who has had so much power in so many of the great ministries and who now appears to believe that this Parliament here can afford to have the few powers that it has reduced, minimised, and, in some cases, eliminated.

I should like to comment on the debate, as Deputy Tully and I opened it in proposing amendments. First of all, perhaps, in contrast to some of the other speakers of my party, I should like to express in a personal capacity the view that there is no incompatibility whatever between our amendment and that of the Labour Party. In fact, I would support wholeheartedly the amendment put forward by the Labour Party. The difficulty which was adverted to by some speakers in regard to the Labour Party amendment may have arisen from a misconstruction of what it was intended to achieve. As was pointed out, the number of regulations, that is, Irish regulations as distinct from EEC regulations, which will come before the House will be about 20 or 30. These will be regulations implementing directives already agreed by the Council of Ministers of the EEC. As the number is small, it will not be all that difficult to have a debate on them prior to their becoming effective in this country. I certainly think the Labour Party amendment is quite practical and I would support it wholeheartedly.

My amendment seeks to do something different but not incompatible. I should like to point out—and this is something which may have been misunderstood from what Deputy Flanagan said—that the amendment I am proposing involves no diminution whatever in the existing rights of members. I do not know whether Deputy Flanagan misunderstood the amendment or not but he seems to be conveying the impression that setting up a committee somehow diminishes existing rights. What it is proposed this committee should do is to supplement the existing procedures. It is an additional line of defence. It is not in any sense reducing the effectiveness of the existing lines of defence. It is merely adding to them.

In discussing this matter, it is, I think, very important to make a very fundamental distinction between discussion on issues of EEC policy prior to a decision being taken thereon by the Council of Ministers of the EEC still to be implemented and discussion after a Council of Ministers' decision has been taken because, in the latter case, all we can do is influence the way in which the Irish Government can choose to implement such a decision. This choice will very often be limited. It is much more important then to exercise our influence prior to a decision being taken by the Council of Ministers. My amendment proposes—it is dealing with a somewhat different aspect from the Labour Party amendment; it is dealing with draft EEC regulations and directives prior to a decision being taken thereon—that a committee be set up to go into each draft directive as it is published and advise the Minister prior to his going to a Council of Ministers meeting of the EEC to discuss it. Quite possibly you could not have all these draft regulations discussed on the floor of the House but you could have the regulations made by the Minister after an EEC decision was discussed. I say you could not have a discussion on draft EEC regulations because the numbers of these regulations are huge and many of them are not draft directives at all. Once they are agreed by the council they will become directly applicable. They cover a very wide field and debate on draft EEC regulations would be much wider than it would be in relation to implementing regulations by the Irish Minister on decisions already made at EEC level.

I am proposing that a committee be set up to go into these. It would be quite legitimate for a Member who was particularly interested in some particular matter to seek the right of audience at this committee, but it would not be possible to discuss all the draft proposals because they change and a decision might be taken before they came before the Council of Ministers at all. I do not see any objection to the committee meeting in public or, indeed, any objection to any Member who is not a member of the committee coming before it. That committee should present a report on its activities every month and it should be open to any Member to come in and discuss any regulation about which he felt concern. It should also be open to Members to use existing procedures. This means they could put down Parliamentary Questions.

On today's Order Paper I have 30 or 40 questions relating to draft EEC directives and, if the Minister does not give me a satisfactory answer on any one of these, I will be free to raise the matter on the Adjournment. Naturally, at Question Time it would not be possible to go into the necessary detail. I would not, for example, be able personally to engage in consultation with private interests, with the NFA, with vocational bodies, et cetera, but the proposed committee would be able to engage. Clearly, we need somebody to supplement the sort of probing questions put down here. If I hear of a regulation and I know the subject matter and I put down a question asking what it is all about the Minister could quite easily pull a fast one because I might not be able to direct him to a particular interpretation of the regulation. If we had a committee, however, that committee would be able to go into the matter in much greater detail. That is why I think it is so necessary to have a committee. May I emphasise for the benefit of Deputy Flanagan, that this committee does not in any sense involve any diminution of the existing procedure available to us.

I come now to the second part of the process where you have a Minister implementing a decision already taken. Here we have a choice. It can be done in two ways. I should qualify this by saying that it would only arise in the case of EEC directives because regulations become directly applicable. In the case of a directive, however, it has to be implemented by regulation or legislation. Confusion can arise unfortunately by the use of the term "regulation" in different contexts. I am dealing now with the implementing of an EEC directive after it has been decided. The Labour Party propose that this should only be done with the prior agreement of the House. As there will only be about 20 or 30 each year, I see no objection whatever to that proposal.

The role I envisage for the committee is that it would act as a body which would decide whether or not a particular directive should be implemented (a) by regulation or (b) by legislation. If the matter is not of very great importance, if it is something of a technical character, it might be acceptable to have it implemented by regulation. If it is a matter of far-reaching importance, a matter in which there is a fairly wide area of discussion open to the Government, then it should be open to the House to influence the Government in regard to the way in which they decide to implement the directive. The choice as to whether it should be done by regulation or legislation should not be left to the Minister himself because, if it is left to the Minister, as it would under the Bill if it is not amended, the Minister will naturally choose the line of least resistance, of minimum inconvenience to himself, which would be to implement the directive by regulation. This power should be taken from the Minister and given to a committee. It is the committee which should decide whether or not the directive should be implemented by way of regulation or legislation. Regulation would mean no debate at all but legislation would involve full debate by Dáil and Seanad Éireann.

In so far as it is decided to implement proposals by regulation we should have the present position with regard to regulations. If, at the moment, a Member objects to a regulation he can have the matter raised within 21 sitting days. The present Bill proposes that that fundamental traditional right should be taken away and the only method available should be by way of Parliamentary Question, Adjournment debate and so on. These would obviously be less effective.

I also propose an addition. At the moment, if one wants a regulation discussed, one can discuss it only on a motion to annual the regulation. It should be open to Deputies to amend a regulation and to have a discussion on a motion so to amend. We might have debates here on regulations which would be quite all right in general but might be wrong in some particular respect and the right thing to do would be to amend them. We should do that and so there is need here for a safeguard. Any amendment proposed should be consistent with the original directive which the regulation is seeking to implement and it should be the function of the suggested committee to decide whether or not the proposed amendment is consistent with the basic EEC directive. Again, I do not believe such a decision should be one for the Minister because he will naturally seek the minimum of inconvenience by getting the thing through as quickly as possible. That is why I think a Dáil committee is the proper body to decide whether or not a proposed amendment to a regulation is consistent, or otherwise, with the original directive. The Minister said that it is inappropriate to the principle of delegated legislation to have it amended. I do not know how he arrived at that conclusion. That is what he said. I think the purpose of any Dáil debate on delegated legislation is that the Minister should be persuaded to amend it——

To the practice and concept, was what I meant. "Principle" was not a good choice of word.

I took particular note of what the Minister said.

I am not denying that I said it but it was a very bad word to select. I should have said "the concept and practice."

It is inappropriate to the concept and practice of delegated legislation, according to the Minister.

That would be more like it.

The concept is more or less the same thing as the principle and if he says it is inappropriate to the concept of delegated legislation to have it amended. I do not agree with him in that interpretation. The whole purpose of debating delegated or any other legislation is to have it amended. The Minister in seeking to arrogate to himself power to make delegated legislation without Members of this House having power to amend it is suggesting that he is the receptacle of all wisdom and that the House could not contribute anything by way of amendments.

I should like to conclude by making the general point that it is essential not only in the interests of parliamentary democracy but in the interests of good bargaining that we should get this House as widely aware as possible of the contents of proposed EEC legislation so that there can be as much clamour as possible in this country and that the Minister, therefore, in going to the Council of Ministers will be in the strongest possible bargaining position to negotiate for this country to maintain any concessions we have got or preserve us from any intrusions which we oppose.

Basically what we want to get here is some status for the House in the immediate future in the conditions of our membership of EEC. All Members of the House must be a little uneasy about the future of democratic participation of this Assembly in decisions in terms of EEC membership. We shall have Members in the European Parliament but the future of that Parliament is still to be decided as the Community develops and it is not certain that it can develop into a true Parliament with the usual constitutional relationship between it and the Executive which the home Parliament of the traditions to which we belong have developed over the years. Some people may have despaired of the parliamentary process but I would say despaired of it as contributing to social change or as being a satisfactory means whereby ordinary citizens can influence the state in which they live. All I would say in defence of it is that I know of no better substitute for it apart from social earthquakes or revolution. These would be ways to change your environment but survivors of revolutions have rather unhappy experiences. To maintain life and limb and generally give people an opportunity to live in peace together Parliaments still have a function if they are properly worked.

The danger, which is perhaps a cloud no bigger than a man's hand in the Minister's proposal, is that it has a smack of the old Gaullist doctrine, that we should have this elitist corps which will superintend these regulations which do not really mean very much, with the implication that not many Deputies would be interested in these complicated matters. I could see in the Minister's early speech that he is adopting the position before he departs for Europe of emeritus schoolmaster on the EEC to the Members of the House when he speaks of the necessity of their reading more. Incidentally, this is good advice——

He means when he gets the documents translated into English.

The Minister said quite clearly that it was not simply the manual workers who were to do more work.

The manual workers are always blamed because their work is manual——

Not on these benches.

If you watch the thinking of anybody who talks about people working harder they only think about manual workers.

Not on these benches. We expect a good output of mental work from the Minister in the next four years or the cessor pay may not be so good at the end. Redundancy is not confined to manual workers in the new situation. The Minister explains piously that he is helping the House and looks at us with compassion and sees that the work of the House is not proceeding with great efficiency and is perturbed lest its efficiency might be further impaired in the years ahead with these troublesome regulations coming along. His helpful suggestion is that another group of civil servants would meet in a place apart and vet these troublesome proposals and pass them on to the unwashed Deputies of the House who would presumably pass them into the oblivion of a unanimous vote.

The Deputy is against the secretariat for Deputies?

No, I am not.

That is what I am proposing.

I am against a secretariat in substitution for Deputies.

I think you should have a secretariat, someone to do the work——

I am reminded that in our own party the late Deputy Seán Dunne and Deputy Tully here were on a committee of the party some years ago and the chief point in their recommendations was that the Opposition should be given the help of a secretariat to assist in their work——

The Deputy thinks I am diminishing Deputies by suggesting the secretariat should be there now?

No. The Minister is suggesting the substitution of a secretariat for Deputies.

That is the implication I see in the Minister's proposal, that these people would do the vetting, do the work which, in our proposal, we suggest this House should have the right to undertake.

There is nothing to stop you from doing this work.

As I understand the Minister's suggestion, we would be dumb for almost two years while the secretariat was combing these regulations and the Deputies would have no function.

If the Deputies wish to do the work themselves the material is in the Library——

But it is in French.

——but I think there should be a secretariat available.

The point is that the Minister shows little desire to help from what I see of his attitude to the amendments between which there is not a great deal of difference. The Labour Party amendment suggests that the House itself should be consulted here and the Fine Gael amendment says that we should have a special committee. The common ground between both is that Parliament must have a function in this period and must not be deprived of the opportunity of discussing these regulations which the Minister estimates at an average of 20 a year.

We are between two unknowns. We have not seen any great desire to see the work of this House reformed in the years gone by. There has been a committee sitting on that matter but the reception its proposals will get from the Government is doubtful. The working of the Dáil has remained unchanged for almost 40 years. We shall be sending ten Members of this Parliament to the European Parliament but it remains very much with the distant future and with factors over which we have very little control—apart from what we can do ourselves, in that direction—as to what way that Parliament will develop.

That Parliament may become a danger; it may become just another Council of Europe, just another Strasbourg. We in this House can assess the situation when we see the persons chosen by the parties to go to the European Parliament. We will know the status the European Parliament holds in the minds of the political parties selecting the people to go to Europe. If we see these places being reserved for persons at the end of their political career, for persons who desire to end their political career, for persons in political disgrace with their parties, for persons not seriously concerned in seeing that the European Parliament will develop, we will know that the majority of the membership here is not interested in seeing the European Parliament developing in the proper fashion.

I hope the Minister can meet the Opposition in their amendments. We are not against the idea of a secretariat. We should like the assistance of a secretariat. We would not like to see the secretariat doing the business of Deputies over the lengthy period suggested by the Minister.

Is the amendment withdrawn?

No. If the Minister has no further comment to make, we would propose to divide the House on it.

I believe the method as proposed is a stronger method.

We are wasting time and I would ask the Chair to put the amendment.

Amendment put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 53; Níl, 65.

  • Barry, Peter.
  • Barry, Richard.
  • Begley, Michael.
  • Belton, Luke.
  • Browne, Noel.
  • Bruton, John.
  • Burke, Joan.
  • Burke, Richard.
  • Burton, Philip.
  • Clinton, Mark A.
  • Cluskey, Frank.
  • Collins, Edward.
  • Conlan, John F.
  • Coogan, Fintan.
  • Cooney, Patrick M.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Cosgrave, Liam.
  • Coughlan, Stephen.
  • Creed, Donal.
  • Crotty, Kieran.
  • Cruise-O'Brien, Conor.
  • Desmond, Barry.
  • Dockrell, Henry P.
  • Donegan, Patrick S.
  • Donnellan, John.
  • Esmonde, Sir Anthony C.
  • Finn, Martin.
  • FitzGerald, Garret.
  • Fitzpatrick, Tom. (Cavan).
  • Flanagan, Oliver J.
  • Governey, Desmond.
  • Harte, Patrick D.
  • Hogan O'Higgins, Brigid.
  • Jones, Denis F.
  • Kavanagh, Liam.
  • Kenny, Henry.
  • L'Estrange, Gerald.
  • McLaughlin, Joseph.
  • McMahon, Lawrence.
  • Malone, Patrick.
  • Murphy, Michael P.
  • O'Donovan, John.
  • O'Hara, Thomas.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F.
  • O'Leary, Michael.
  • O'Reilly, Paddy.
  • O'Sullivan, John L.
  • Pattison, Séamus.
  • Ryan, Richie.
  • Spring, Dan.
  • Taylor, Francis.
  • Timmins, Godfrey.
  • Tully, James.

Níl

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Lorcan.
  • Andrews, David.
  • Barrett, Sylvester.
  • Boylan, Terence.
  • Brady, Philip A.
  • Brennan, Paudge.
  • Briscoe, Ben.
  • Brosnan, Seán.
  • Browne, Patrick.
  • Browne, Seán.
  • Burke, Patrick J.
  • Carter, Frank.
  • Childers, Erskine.
  • Colley, George.
  • Collins, Gerard.
  • Connolly, Gerard C.
  • Cowen, Bernard.
  • Cronin, Jerry.
  • Crowley, Flor.
  • Cunningham, Liam.
  • Davern, Noel.
  • de Valera, Vivion.
  • Dowling, Joe.
  • Fahey, Jackie.
  • Faulkner, Pádraig.
  • Fitzgerald, Gene.
  • Fitzpatrick, Tom. (Dublin Central).
  • Flanagan, Seán.
  • Foley, Desmond.
  • French, Seán.
  • Geoghegan, John.
  • Gibbons, Hugh.
  • Gibbons, James.
  • Gogan, Richard P.
  • Haughey, Charles.
  • Healy, Augustine A.
  • Herbert, Michael.
  • Hillery, Patrick J.
  • Hilliard, Michael.
  • Hussey, Thomas.
  • Kenneally, William.
  • Kitt, Michael F.
  • Lalor, Patrick J.
  • Lemass, Noel T.
  • Loughnane, William A.
  • Lynch, Celia.
  • Lynch, John.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacSharry, Ray.
  • Meaney, Thomas.
  • Molloy, Robert.
  • Moore, Seán.
  • Nolan, Thomas.
  • Noonan, Michael.
  • O'Connor, Timothy.
  • O'Kennedy, Michael.
  • O'Leary, John.
  • O'Malley, Des.
  • Power, Patrick.
  • Smith, Michael.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Timmons, Eugene.
  • Tunney, Jim.
  • Wyse, Pearse.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Cluskey and G. Timmins; Nil, Deputies Andrews and Meaney.
Amendment declared lost.

Amendment No. 8, in the names of Deputies Corish and Tully, along with amendment No. 12 forms a composite proposal. Since amendment No. 9 is related, if Deputies are agreeable, we can take amendments Nos. 8, 9 and 12 together. No. 9 is an amendment in the names of Deputies Cosgrave and Ryan.

There can be separate votes?

Definitely, but we can discuss them together.

I move amendment No. 8:

In page 3, between lines 17 and 18, to insert a new subsection as follows:—

"The power conferred in the foregoing subsection shall not include power to repeal or amend any part of the domestic law of the State."

This is an amendment to section 3 of the Bill and, in order to explain it properly, I wish to read the first portion of the section which provides:

A Minister of State may make regulations for enabling section 2 of this Act to have full effect.

That is subsection (1). The amendment proposed to insert a new subsection as follows:

The power conferred in the foregoing subsection shall not include power to repeal or amend any part of the domestic law of the State.

This, in fact, is the nub of the whole Bill. We want to know from the Minister if we can safeguard the domestic law of the State or if, by regulation, a Minister may alter the law of the State, in other words, Acts passed by this House and the other House of the Oireachtas and signed by the President which are the law of the land. Can they be annulled simply by the Minister making a regulation to conform with something in the EEC?

We had a very lengthy debate on the previous amendments and for that reason I feel that we all understand the position which exists here now or will exist here after 1st January and the Minister, I think, appreciates the desire of the Members of the House to ensure that no power which can be retained by this House should be given away easily. We have put down this amendment because we feel that if we are going to allow the domestic law to be changed simply by a ministerial order, we are, in fact, giving away almost the entire authority of Oireachtas Éireann. I should like to hear the Minister's comment on it before I make any further submission and, perhaps, Deputy Ryan would allow the Minister to make a comment on this amendment and on amendment No. 12 which seeks to delete "(including provisions repealing, amending or applying, with or without modification, other law, exclusive of this Act)". That is, in effect, simply a back up for amendment No. 8. Perhaps the Minister might give us what he considers is the interpretation of that subsection and if we are satisfied that either it cannot be altered or our amendment is not necessary, we can take a certain line of action.

I do not think the amendment is acceptable because it would be a restriction on power which we seek in the subsection, on the basis that this is the best and most practical way of implementing our obligations under the secondary legislation. The Deputy might have forgotten that each time we speak of powers of Ministers, there is a limitation on the Minister's power in regard to what we enable him to make regulations about. Any Minister acts within the limits of our obligations under the Act of Accession. Perhaps I did not put it well when I said that the vast majority of Community legislation would be to our advantage. What I should have said and what I wanted to convey was that in the vast majority of our cases, it is to our advantage to implement them quickly because there is a benefit to be gained by making some legislation exist but this amendment would restrict the power we seek.

Again, as I said in the other cases, there is nothing new in this, enabling a Minister to amend or repeal existing legislative provisions, whether by delegated legislation or by means of statutory instrument. There are examples of this. The Agricultural Produce (Cereals) (Amendment) Act, 1958, section 7, gives power to assign by ministerial order additional functions to An Bord Gráin; the Diseases of Animals Act, 1966, section 2, gives power to amend by ministerial order the First Schedule setting out the animals to which the Act applies; and the Social Welfare (Occupational Injuries) Act, 1966 gives power to amend by ministerial order a schedule of the Social Welfare Act to add to excepted employment. So we are looking for nothing that is new in concept. We are seeking power to make implementation of our obligation possible.

There is another point which, I think, is important, that it is not certain—one could not possibly be certain—that a ministerial regulation made to fulfil our obligations would not be in conflict with existing legislation, with some existing provision, and if this conflict existed, the normal rules would apply to the effect that the earlier provision would be amended to the extent of the conflict. If the amendment were adopted, the contrary would happen—the regulation would be invalid to the extent of the inconsistency and it would take away altogether from the effectiveness of the ministerial regulation, if such happened.

Would the Minister mind repeating the last portion? It is a little obscure.

We work here on implied repeal and that later legislation amends or is taken to amend unrepealed earlier legislation and if a regulation is made, with these powers we seek, to amend legislation, then any inconsistency which would arise between existing legislation and a regulation made by the Minister would be corrected on that principle in which the ministerial regulation with power to amend legislation would stand. But if you limit that power and do not permit of a ministerial regulation amending earlier legislation, in the attempt to fulfil our obligations, he would make a regulation which in the event of conflict, would be found to be inconsistent. These are the arguments for seeking to maintain the powers given in the section.

Amendment No. 12 relates to amendment and repeal and I think it would fall if amendment No. 8 fell. It provides for the application——

The same principle.

Yes, the same thing again.

Arising out of the Minister's reply, I think we are obviously entering into what for all of us is necessarily new and unfamiliar ground and that the doubts which we sought to allay by our amendment are not fully allayed, and, perhaps, cannot be, by the Minister's reply. We are in difficulty here in that the people have already accepted entry into Europe and there may not be alternative methods of entering. We may not be able to qualify things in the way we might like at the present stage. That part of the debate is already closed. There were one or two things in the Minister's statement, however, which were very gently delivered as always but are, perhaps, somewhat disquieting all the same. He said that he could not accept the amendment because it would set up restrictions "on powers we seek". There are occasions on which powers which Ministers seek ought to be restricted in the interests of the working of Parliamentary democracy so that the mere fact that they are restrictions on powers which the Minister seeks, with due respect, is not an adequate reason in itself for turning them down.

He also said that there is nothing new in the concept here but, in fact, the whole context is new in concept, new in scale, perhaps, in that individual precedents for particular aspects can be found but the whole thing is utterly new in concept for all of us and it is clear that the Minister or his successor will acquire very widespread powers of amending legislation made under Acts and general principles decided elsewhere.

The Minister has not allayed our fears and perhaps cannot. We do not wish to be unreasonable or obstructive, nor do I think we have been, about this matter since the principle has been decided already. We had hoped the Minister might be able to accept some of these amendments. I accept that some of them have been discussed rather fully already. I was attending the Committee on the Implications of Irish Unity and I do not want to go over ground which was quite possibly covered in my absence, but I should like to ask the Minister if he will go some way to meet our fears, which may prove to be ungrounded or not as firmly grounded as we think.

The Minister has said that in respect of the vast majority of these regulations it will be an advantage to us to implement them as quickly as possible. If so, it would be a solid reason, a very good practical reason for the benefit of our people, why these powers should not be restricted. But we have yet to see whether this will be the case and how it will work. When we have had some experience, say after six months, of being in Europe and being subject to such regulations and so on, will he allow for time to be provided in the House for a review of this matter in the same spirit as we are now discussing it, which I think is a constructive spirit all round? If this could be done I think it would help us on this side not to press this to a vote.

For the time being I will confine my remarks to the amendment standing in the names of Deputy Cosgrave and myself which seeks to put brakes on the power which the present section can give to Ministers. We seek to ensure that Ministers will not, having been give a blanket power, have power to impose or to increase taxation, to administer justice, to declare acts to be infringements of the law which were not so at the date of their commission, to make any provision taking effect from a date earlier than that of the making of the instrument containing the provision, to create any new criminal offence, or to confer any power to limit the personal rights guaranteed by our Constitution and the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

It would be a grievous error to give to the Minister power to create any new criminal offence or to give him power—this is the proposal in the Bill —to breach personal rights guaranteed by our Constitution. It will not be good enough for the Minister to answer that it is unlikely a Minister would abuse the powers in such a way as to commit breaches of these constitutional rights or the European conventions; the Dáil today is being asked to give unlimited powers to Ministers to make orders over a field of human activity wider than anything the House itself has control over.

At present this House and the other House are subject to the control and the supervision of our own courts of justice and if Oireachtas Éireann exceed the powers conferred on them by the Constitution they can be tripped up in their tracks by a decision in the courts that the action of Parliament is ultra vires the Constitution, is wrong and cannot be proceeded with. But the amendment of the Constitution carried by our people on 10th May last is so extensive, when coupled with the unlimited powers the Minister seeks in this Bill, that there could be many deeds done which would be breaches of our own Constitution were it not for last May's constitutional amendment and the immense powers this Bill proposes to confer.

It will be agreed that everything is not black and white here or in the European Communities, that there are bound to be many areas of grey uncertainty, and unless we protect our people in the manner we suggest in the amendment, there is a possibility that serious injustice and harm could be done by various proposals made in the Bill.

Essential to the operation of democracy and to the preservation of freedom is not to impose taxation without representation. Essential to the preservation of democracy and freedom is to give to the people's representatives an opportunity to discuss the purpose of taxation, the manner in which it is to be imposed and collected, and the purpose for which it is to be spent. Even allowing for the immense powers the European institutions may have for setting the size of the budget and the manner in which the budget is to be expended, there is still left to the several national parliaments a considerable amount of freedom to decide the manner in which the taxation is to be collected.

At present the revenues of the Communities come in the main from agricultural levies, and from 1975 onwards all taxes charged at the frontiers of the European Customs Union will be revenue of the Communities. It is envisaged that the yield from the harmonised VAT may not be sufficient to meet the budget of the Communities. It has been specifically provided in Article 22 of the decision of 21st April, 1970, that any further changes in taxation would necessitate a special Council decision and endorsement by the individual member states in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements. The Community recognise that the different member states have different systems of imposing taxation and collecting taxation, have different authorities for imposing taxation and collecting revenue, and they have, therefore, specifically provided that each member state would proceed in its own particular way according to its own constitutional requirements, to conform to Community requirements.

The Bill proposes that the Government need not come before Dáil Éireann to obtain additional taxation. It could be imposed simply by ministerial regulation. This would be a serious breach of the democratic principle that there should not be taxation without representation. It is not sufficient to say that because a government is elected by the democratic process it is in itself the essence of democracy and full democratic representation takes place at governmental level.

The Constitution recognises the fundamental importance of giving Parliament a full say in the imposition of taxation and in the control of expenditure. The power to impose taxes is reserved to Members of this House as the directly elected representatives of the people who, on that account, have a complete mandate from the people to regulate taxation, to say what money should be paid and how it should be expended. That power is not given to the Seanad. If the people who framed our Constitution and those who voted in favour of it decided it would be wrong to give the power of imposing taxation to any authority other than to all the directly elected people's representatives in this House, surely it would be much worse to pass this enabling Bill which would allow taxation to be imposed on a personal decision of a Minister. No doubt he would consult the Government but it would not be a decision of the people through their directly elected Parliamentary representatives.

This principle was recognised in the British Parliament. In their Communities Bill the British Parliament specifically provided that the power of taxation would not go with the other powers conferred on Ministers. As I pointed out this morning, I always hesitate to quote British or foreign examples to this Assembly. We should be able to make our own decisions on merit alone. However, it is of interest that in Britain and in a number of other member States the power to impose taxation simply by ministerial order is not given to Ministers.

The Minister acknowledged in his speech on Second Stage that many of the steps necessary to implement directives and secondary legislation might be taken by legislation. It need not necessarily be done by ministerial order or regulation. It is possible that a reasonable Minister and Government might consider they should not impose taxation without going to the Dáil and putting it in a legislative proposal. However we cannot assume all Ministers and Governments will act reasonably in the future. In order to prevent Ministers succumbing to the temptation of collecting taxation in the easy way without debate it is essential that our amendment be written into the Bill and I hope the Minister will see his way to accepting this. It would ease the public mind considerably, if he made it clear he had no wish to use regulations to impose taxation.

As the Minister knows, more declarations in this House will not suffice to debar Ministers in future from using legislation in a particular way if the power is given to them. From my reading of parliamentary history, I recall an undertaking given in relation to the Offences Against the State Act that the prohibition against demonstrations within half a mile of Leinster House would not be used against anybody except subversive organisations. However, the first two organisations against which that power was used were the National Farmers' Association and post office workers. I have no doubt the Minister of the day gave the undertaking in good faith; I suspect the Ministers who used the power in the way in which they did some 30 years later did not recall the undertaking previously given. However, it indicates clearly the grave danger of putting on the statute book an enabling measure which could be used in a way not intended by the legislators.

It would not diminish or take from the effect of the Bill if this restriction was imposed. It would still be open to the Government to come to the Dáil and seek to get the increase in taxation by way of a Bill from the Dáil. In fact, I think the Minister's position would be improved because the people would have spoken through their elected representatives. That is the way democracy must work. If we give away that power to the Minister we will be doing a grave disservice to the people.

It is interesting to note that the Constitution recognises the importance of financial matters. It is provided in the Constitution that the Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Minister for Finance must be Members of the Dáil. There is no such provision in relation to any of the other Ministers. This provision in the Constitution shows that there is clear recognition of the essential link in the democratic process between the imposition of taxation, the expenditure of public money and the authority of the people. This must only be given after an open and free debate in this properly elected Assembly.

What we are proposing here does not conflict with the obligations of the European Treaties. In fact, it gives life to the obligations of the European Communities because the Communities want the people to be involved in decision-making. This was clearly recognised in the October communiqué from the Summit Conference where the Ministers recognised as a serious weakness the structures and procedures which caused the people to be alienated from and to be too far removed from decision-making. If we are to divest ourselves here of financial control over the Government we will be doing a grave disservice to our people and we will damage the whole approach which is necessary if our people are to accept and be content with the European institutions.

Our Constitution also provides that justice must be administered in courts established by the Constitution. The power conferred on Ministers in sections 2 and 3 of this Bill is so extensive that Ministers could, by order or regulation, establish their own tribunals to administer justice. By virtue of the amendment made in the Constitution earlier this year, such tribunals would be regarded as valid. The amendment to Article 29 of the Constitution is so extensive that any act done and necessitated by membership would be valid. It might be open to argument that what was done in the establishment of certain tribunals was not necessitated by membership but was done because a Minister considered it was the most convenient administrative way of achieving the objectives of the Community, but it is undesirable that we should have any area of doubt or argument. There is certainly nothing in the European Communities which would prevent them from issuing a regulation or a directive which would require the establishment of such a tribunal for the purpose of administering certain matters which at the moment can only be administered in the Irish courts established and recognised by our own law. We say it is essential to ensure that justice is administered only in courts established by our law, except on such issues as might arise in relation to the interpretation of European Community law, which would be matters for the European institutions. It would be wrong were we to have courts and tribunals established by ministerial order, and that could be done were we to pass the Bill without the brakes which we seek to apply in this particular amendment.

Our Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights say that it is wrong to declare acts to be infringements of the law which were not so on the date of their commission. There is no such provision that I am aware of in the European Community Treaty. While it is unlikely that the institutions of the Community would make such a requirement, it could happen. Certainly this legal principle is not as universally respected in Europe as it is in our legal system. If the Minister's reply in this matter is that it is unlikely that the European Communities would require us to declare acts to be infringements of the law which were not so at the time of their commission, that kills any opposition to the amendment. It is better to write in this amendment to provide this safeguard in case of any future doubt about what may be considered at the moment to be daft and imprudent.

The same argument applies in relation to subsection (4) where we seek to ensure that the power would not include power to make any provision which would take effect earlier than the date contained in the provision. We are not concerned with offences here, but simply with any other obligations and liabilities which could arise under the regulations to be made by the Ministers. It is essential that we should keep within the control of this House, and of the Seanad, the right of creating new criminal offences. It is an essential to our legal system that every person knows the law and is presumed to know the law. The tragedy at present is that, whatever our knowledge may be of domestic law, we have little notion of many of the new legal obligations which will arise from the 1st of January next. In their annual report issued yesterday the Incorporated Law Society of Ireland stated that they had made urgent representations to the Government asking them to issue, without further delay, a clear guide to what the legal position would be after the 1st January, 1973, in relation to a wide area of legal matters, and particularly in relation to such existing Irish laws as may be amended or repealed. The Incorporated Law Society have pointed out that the Government have not come forward with this guide so that even legal practitioners, who know more about the law than the ordinary man in the street, find they are in a fog created by Governmental inactivity. The Government has done nothing to dispel this fog since the 10th of May last when they got the "green light" from the people indicating that they wanted to go into the EEC.

This is a deplorable situation, but it must not be made worse by conferring on Ministers the right to create new criminal offences simply by means of ministerial regulations which will not get the kind of public debate which ought to take place before any new criminal offences are created.

There are many aspects of European Community law which might not be regarded as serious moral issues. Taxation offences could occur which would not be of a criminal nature and might not be regarded by people as matters of any serious degree of moral turpitude. There might not be much public interest in legislation for new criminal offences dealing with financial and other Community matters, but if somebody was accidentally caught up in this new civil and criminal labyrinth this might have most serious consequences for him, his reputation, and his wife and family.

The reservation which we seek to impose here is not one which will obstruct the functioning of the EEC. It will not prevent us fulfilling all our obligations under the European Economic Community, but it is a safe way of involving our people in the decision-making and a safe way of providing an understanding of what the Community is endeavouring to do.

Finally, we provide that the powers cannot in any way be used to limit the fundamental personal rights guaranteed by our own Constitution or by the European Convention of European Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. There is often confusion in the public mind between the European institutions of the Community and the European institutions of the Council of Europe. They are not one and the same, although the Assembly of the Council of Europe and the European Parliament meet in the one building and occupy the same seats — though not at the same time — in Strasbourg. They are separate entities and the European Community institutions are not necessarily governed by the principles set out in the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The several nation states who are members of the European Communities are also participants in the Council of Europe, but at least one of the Member states of the European Communities has not yet ratified the European Convention, and two of them have not yet subscribed to the European Convention, in such a way as to give an individual who is aggrieved, a right of complaint to the European Commission. While I would say, and acknowledge, that it is impossible that the European Communities will act in a way which would be contrary to the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms it is possible, particularly when one sees that some countries, when under stress, can avoid their obligations by notifying the Council that they are doing so, will even avoid their obligations though it is illegal for them to do so.

Our amendment is one which I believe should commend itself to the Government, particularly at a time when Ireland has a complaint before the European Commission of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and are glad to be able to use that institution in order to voice their complaint about allegations of torture and ill-treatment of Irish people in Northern Ireland. We must ensure that this right continues.

I hope the Minister will not be put off by advice which he may get from his experts. The Minister knows well the consequences of expert advice sometimes. The expert advice given to the Committee of Ministers at the Council of Europe, as the Minister knows well, was advice which would have prevented the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms being amended so as to prohibit discrimination on religious, political or racial grounds in respect of access to employment or the allocation of housing.

The experts met for two-and-a-half years and said it would be awkward to do it. The Committee of Ministers went further and decided that in their opinion it was not desirable or expedient, but that was a decision of the Ministers on political considerations. It was not desirable or expedient to them because it would have been a matter of some embarrassment to them if individuals were to make complaints about their conduct before the European Commission of Human Rights. If the Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Parliament of the Council of Europe, had listened to the experts and had accepted the view of the Ministers that nothing should be done, that would have been the end of it, but the Minister and his Government—and more power to them—and all the Irish delegates to the Council of Europe insisted that we should not accept the view of the experts. As a result the parliamentary representatives collected in the Council asserted their right to require that these matters be written in, even though the experts found it difficult and found that it was not an easy exercise to draft a convention to comply with the wishes of the parliamentarians. But it now has to be done because the Committee of Ministers has been overruled by the Assembly and the experts have been sent back to their desks to do the work that parliament says they must do.

We are not doing anything which offends against our obligations in the European Community. There may be some grey-haired men behind desks in Brussels or some young whiz-kids who might not like these brakes to be put on, but these brakes are to stop our own Ministers at home from running berserk and running amok. There is nothing here which in any way conflicts with our obligations to the European Communities, with our obligations to our people under our Constitution or the obligations which lie on us as Europeans to observe the European Convention of Human Rights. I believe it would vastly improve the Bill and would certainly help to remove some of the grave worries which lie on Members of this House and members of the general public about the unnecessarily extensive powers which Ministers are seeking in this legislation.

There are four amendments here — two from the Labour Party and two from Fine Gael— and they are different. I am concerned with the area of economic and related social activity which membership of the Community obliges us to accept — either direct regulations or implementation by our own regulations of their directives. My concern is to fulfil our obligations under the Act of Accession and to be able to do this quickly and, at the same time, to have some parliamentary control. I think I should argue again that the method proposed here in section 4 is more powerful than the method of laying something before the House and seeing whether it will be taken up by somebody and voted against. Perhaps we could try to visualise how section 4 would work. It will mean that there will be a full legislative debate, all stages, on regulations made by the Minister. In actual experience it will mean that, if the Minister lost the vote on it or on any part of it, then the regulation made would lapse, but also, and I think more important, the making of regulations will be done with a view to the debate which is coming up. These two things will have a big influence on the regulations made by Ministers. Ministers will be entitled to come and make proposals through Bills here. As I foresee it, there will be total consideration of the attitude of Parliament when a Minister is having a regulation prepared. Then when the Parliament comes to debate it, there will be the possibility of the Oireachtas just making the regulation drop so the Minister will not be implementing it as he wanted to and will have to find a new way.

I accept the Labour Party point of view that there should be more frequent debates, that they should be sooner after these regulations and I will try to get an amendment which will bring in the second point, that of frequent debate. If it is possible to draft, and I think it must be, a way of having the Ministerial regulations presented by the Minister in legislation in six months instead of at the end of the year after they are made, then you would have debates at the end of six months, regular debates, and you would have the Minister being conscious of them.

I would like to retain the power which we have here. As I explained to Deputy Tully, the power of the Minister must remain to amend legislation. That will be necessary. Otherwise we will have conflict with failure of regulations possibly.

The other area gone into by Deputy Ryan is the extent of the Minister's powers in terms of widening the scope of the wish of the people last May, in going into areas that we did not consider at that time to be areas in which we sought powers. We sought power to become a member of the Community and to make the changes necessary or necessitated by membership which were economic and related social ones, but during the referendum I had approaches from people who were worried about the fundamental individual rights in the Constitution. I saw no reason for that worry. I could see no possibility of the rights — I think Deputy Ryan is unhappy at having Article 44 in his amendment—of the individual being given away by ministerial order.

I could make it "Article 44, as amended".

I see no possibility of this being done. If a Minister makes an order to interfere with these rights that order will be made in the consciousness that it is going to be debated in the Oireachtas afterwards and the Oireachtas can change it. If I thought there was any possibility of the decision of the public last May being so interpreted as to give such wide powers I would seriously consider putting in that paragraph (iv) but I believe, and the Government believe, that the method of legislation we have adopted, without which all those regulations would drop, is much more powerful—influencing the preparation and the continuation of the existence of the regulations.

The power to impose or increase taxation already exists in the Imposition of Duties Acts. I think I used to bring orders here when I was Minister for Industry and Commerce. It relates to customs duties and excise duties and there is no limitation. Again, apart from the tidiness of the Bill, I cannot see it doing any harm to put it into the Bill.

I do not take the point about the administration of justice. That is a matter for the courts. If we go so far as to make the changes the Deputy is afraid of, I do not think a debate in the Dáil will make a difference.

Accepting any of these suggested amendments would mean that a Minister would come in with legislation rather than make a regulation and come later with legislation. He would come the first day with legislation rather than within the period we are determined on.

Paragraph (iii) is unnecessary. It is: to declare acts to be infringements of the law which were not so at the date of their commission;

This states the position as it stands. I do not think it is necessary to put it in. It is in the Constitution and the Convention of Human Rights. Paragraph (iv) is:

To make any provision taking effect from a date earlier than that of the making of the instrument containing the provision;

It is necessary for us to have the power for the Minister to make that provision because sometimes the Community adopts legislation and decisions with retrospective effect. There was one last week. The Council made a decision on financial adjustments payable at internal Community borders to take account of changes in the rates of exchange. In future these taxes or refunds are to be paid out of Community funds and no longer out of national funds. This decision has a retrospective effect to July of this year in so far as refunds on exports to non-member countries are concerned. It is important that we retain that power.

Part (v) is:

To create any new criminal offence: It will be necessary to have the power to decide that something is a new criminal offence. If the House wanted to put a limitation on the type of offence which could be created by ministerial order perhaps you could exclude indictable offences. That would limit offences that could be created by ministerial order to those coming within the jurisdiction of the District Court. Again, we have ministerial orders to be followed by legislation in the Dáil in which the Dáil goes through the full process of legislation and if it does not pass it lapses.

We have not given it much thought because we talk in terms of the Minister making regulations and it stands subject to confirmation. It lapses if it does not get the full power of legislation. We will seek to have more frequent or earlier legislative confirmation of the orders. I will try to have that drafted for the next Stage. That would mean we would have the debates twice a year perhaps or it may be possible for the House to make other arrangements. We are talking of having some help for the House to deal with this. There was talk of a committee but Deputies made it quite clear they did not want all the work done in a committee, that they wanted to participate. We will have to make some arrangements for the other procedures in the House and to have the House deal with these things by, perhaps, a combination of committees and the Dáil, so that the work can be done. I do not know how attached Deputies are to these.

I cannot argue in regard to No. (iv). Many people want to be quite sure that these could not be easily changed. Of course, the protection is there that if the Minister made an order changing them the required legislation would have to come through the Oireachtas and could be beaten. It would then lapse. I do not see the need for it but if there was any idea in it I would accept it.

The Labour Party welcome the assurance we have received from the Minister about early review. In view of the unfamiliarity of the territory we are now entering into, this principle of early review is fundamental. I hope I understand the Minister right that he would give the Dáil an opportunity of debating the working of this at the end of a six month period.

Would the Minister also tell us whether at that stage he would provide facilities for the offering of amendments to the Bill in the light of our experience of how it has actually worked? Some of the fears expressed here may seem to be groundless, but others may seem to be borne out by experience. Would the Minister offer facilities for that kind of review and not merely for a general debate with expressions of opinion?

As Deputy Ryan said in regard to some earlier undertaking the Minister can go and his successor take over. I will have to report on the Report Stage in regard to this.

We appreciate the Minister's readiness to leave at least some meaningful power, which is certainly four times better than what was originally proposed in the Bill. It is better to be able to do something every six months than have to wait two years. It is better to have the opportunity every six months of having a look at what is happening rather than to have to wait two years to do anything in respect of orders which become effective on the 1st January, 1973. It could be late in 1974 before we could get an opportunity of having a bite at the January 1973 regulations. Some of what the Minister says tends to strengthen the argument for adopting our amendment. He says that at the moment ministers have power to impose increased taxation. It is very limited power and is related only to customs duties as he says. If he has that power already he does not need a second enabling measure to do the same thing. It is surely wrong to give a Minister two ways of doing the one thing. That is very bad legislation and it would be a very bad practice for this House to adopt to give a Minister a choice of methods under the system of delegated legislation. If he has the power already to deal with customs duties let him use it.

We accept that the European Communities will in fact be laying down new customs regulations and will be providing that by 1975 all revenue from customs duties will go direct to the Communities. We say this procedure is so important that it ought to be brought into the House and explained. If my memory serves me right any order permitting the imposition of duties has to be brought to the House and approved within 21 sitting days. One gets so confused about the various forms and methods applicable to different classes of delegated legislation that it is often difficult, without having the reference beside one to know what the precise method is. It is certainly not as remotely controlled as what was originally set out in this Bill. We will have to wait for the Minister's improvements on Report Stage to see if it will be improved. The control was so remote that anything from 20 to 24 months could pass before we would get an opportunity of passing comment, much less of influencing or annulling, what the Minister has previously done.

The Minister says he takes it that justice will continue to be administered by the courts. I accept that is where it ought to be, but there have been a number of judicial interpretations here where Acts of the Oireachtas have been condemned as being unconstitutional because they sought to confer powers of decision on bodies other than the judiciary. I think particularly of disciplinary bodies of professions like the solicitors profession which was given power to adjudicate on whether or not a solicitor would be permitted to continue to practice as a solicitor. The legal fraternity walked into a trap as did this House and the Seanad, under prompting from the legal profession. The legal profession was given power to discipline their own profession. This was ultimately found to be unconstitutional because the ultimate decision, it was held by the judiciary, had to be taken by the judiciary. If at some date in the future the Minister proceeds to set up a similar tribunal or confer authority on somebody other than the judiciary to adjudicate on some matter, he may find himself in a position in which he is creating new courts which were not envisaged at the time the Constitution came into operation. It might be doubtful whether or not they were required by the European Communities.

There is nothing in the amendment which would stop this State of ours fulfilling its obligations. All we are asking is that the decision as to the method would be left in the future as in the past, to Parliament. The Minister on Second Stage acknowknowledged that there will be occasions on which even though a Minister could do something by regulation he would prefer to do it by legislation. We say: "Why not identify some of these areas?" so that we now, beyond any doubt, identify certain matters of principle on which we will not seek to legislate by ministerial regulation. It is as simple as all that. I do not think it is unreasonable and I hope the Minister will see his way to correct the unnecessarily great power which he seeks to obtain.

I am worried by the Minister's statement that it is necessary to provide power to make some provisions effective from a date earlier than that of the making of the instrument. I already hit the Minister with the British Bill and I propose to tap him on the shoulder with it again and ask him if what he is saying is valid how he can explain in section 2 of the second Schedule to the British Act it is provided that the powers conferred on the Ministers do not include the power to make any provision taking effect from a date earlier than that of the making of the instrument containing the provision. The same wording has been adopted in our amendment. If what the Minister says is true the British Parliament has already committed an offence against Community obligations.

I think so. The Deputy's wording relates to making provision taking effect from a day earlier than that of the making of the instrument containing the provision but the Community have instruments with retrospective provision. Therefore, if what the Deputy has said means that they cannot have retrospective action before the date of the actual instrument, not before the date mentioned in the instrument, then the British are in trouble.

The reference is to directives, not regulations.

It refers to ministerial regulations to implement directives.

A directive of the EEC would not require retrospective effect. A regulation might take effect immediately.

Only last week we had an example when there was a Council decision on financial adjustments with retrospective effect.

Was this a directive?

It was a decision which is the same as a directive for that type of implementation.

It is not the same.

It is. Regulations have direct application.

If what the Minister says is true, and I will accept it for the purpose of this argument, it is a decision and it is left to the individual countries to devise their own ways and means of implementing the decision. What we are saying in our amendment is that the matter is so grievous that Parliament must decide the best way to implement the European decisions. This should not be left to individual Ministers, particularly if it is to be retrospective. While we have the greatest respect for ministerial office the only way in which we can ensure adequate communication of information is by a Minister coming to Parliament and explaining why regulations are being made retrospective. The fact that a notice is published in Iris Oifigiúil, or some Stationery Office publication does not mean that it will be communicated to an adequate number of people that something has happened which makes a retrospective provision in relation to Community laws, obligations and liabilities. We have no certainty that because it happens in Parliament it will be promulgated sufficiently but we can be grateful to and can rely upon the gentlemen of the Fourth Estate who have a great capacity for extracting the essentials from rambling debates and communicating them to the public. We will not have that process of valuable communication if the matter is left simply to ministerial regulation.

I will have to confirm the information I have regarding decision making. It may be by regulation or it may be by directive. I was under the impression that it would be applicable by local legislation but that may not be so.

I hope that one of the first acts of the Irish delegation to the European Parliament will be to devise different terminology so that we shall not find ourselves talking of "regulations" and confusing ministerial orders of the Republic of Ireland with crucial decisions of the Council of Europe. In relation to the sixth amendment point the Minister says he cannot find any reason to object to it. He considers it to be acceptable and good in principle. It would be good for us to prove ourselves as people truly concerned with human life and fundamental freedoms, to recognise an international instrument in our own legislation. It would be good in the Irish environment to spell out that we will not do anything which could trifle with fundamental rights and it would be good in the Community to show that we are very conscious of the need to preserve human rights and fundamental freedoms. The Minister may think that it is somewhat verbose or in the nature of a homily to write it into this legislation, but it is something more than that. It imposes a clear obligation on a Minister and his advisers to look at the European convention and to consider the human rights Articles of our own Constitution before drafting a ministerial regulation. That is a very good exercise and one that we ought to encourage. Therefore, I hope the Minister will see his way to writing in these brakes. They will not limit the power of this State to fulfil its obligations to the Community but they will indicate that we wish to be an effective Parliament within the European environment. If we do that we will improve the status of our parliamentary members at the Community and also it will hasten the day when the European Parliament will become a truly democratic and effective Parliament.

In the amendment tabled by Deputies Cosgrave and Ryan it is proposed that there shall not be power to impose or increase taxation. Surely this House must consider that a request to impose or increase taxation should not be the responsibility of any Minister nor should this House give to any Minister this power. What is more important is that the powers which the Minister is seeking under the Bill should not include the administration of justice and if it is not the intention to include power to administer justice the Minister, if he is not prepared to accept the amendment in whole, should at least accept the most important parts of it.

It would be an extraordinarily wide power to vest in any man the power to create any new criminal offence. It would be a very great power to vest in any Minister to allow him, by a stroke of his pen, to create a new criminal offence or to interfere in any way in the administration of justice or in the individual rights which citizens are guaranteed under the Constitution. We have been told by the Minister that the field in which he is concerned is the social and economic field. If it is the position that the role we will have to play will be mainly in the social and economic field there is nothing to prevent the Minister from accepting in full the Fine Gael amendment. It has been stated by the Minister that there will be discussions in the House in relation to the EEC as frequently as possible, perhaps twice a year. Will the Minister anticipate the expressed opinion of the House in relation to the powers he is receiving and to the manner in which he uses these powers? I am at a loss to know how it could come within the ambit of the Minister to create a new criminal offence. What would be the purpose of the newly-created offence unless it was in connection with taxation or financial matters? To create new criminal offences as he thought fit would undoubtedly be an intrusion on the individual rights of citizens. If such offences are to be created this is the Assembly which should create them.

The powers which this House is now giving to Ministers are very wide-ranging. As I have said on a number of other occasions today, it involves a diminution of the powers which up to now have been invested in this House. I welcome most wholeheartedly the undertaking given by the Minister to have frequent discussions of the whole House in relation to these matters. I should imagine that if it is the intention of the Minister to use the power which this Bill vests in him, the power to amend legislation, we shall have a considerable debate and exchange of views on whatever legislation the Minister proposes.

If this amendment were written into the Bill, the House would have more confidence in it and people would know that no acts would be performed by the Minister not alone without consultation but without an expression of opinion from the national assembly. It is all very well to say that the House can wholeheartedly accept the advice given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, but here we are handing over great power and great responsibility to any Minister. The Minister cannot give a guarantee on behalf of future Ministers for Foreign Affairs that the powers we are now vesting in Ministers will be exercised in a completely responsible manner. The Minister can give a guarantee for himself, and I presume the Minister would even attempt to give a guarantee on behalf of his colleagues, at least those with whom he is intimately associated. However, we have had irresponsible Ministers before. We have had stupid and irresponsible governments in the past. Taoisigh did strange things to alter which referenda had to be carried out. I believe that this amendment proposed by the Fine Gael Party is a safeguard against the irresponsible exercise of power by any Minister.

To create new offences is an extraordinary power for Parliament to vest in a particular man, and more extraordinary still, the right to impose increased taxation. The right to impose increased taxation was always vested in Parliament. The Minister for Finance had to come in here and seek the approval of the House for such taxation. I believe this Bill would be strengthened considerably if the Minister would accept this amendment which Deputy Ryan has so eloquently recommended to the House. We are all jealous in this House of the powers vested in us, and we are saddened at the transfer of powers to individual Ministers. It carries with it great danger and it also creates deep resentment amongst those who cherish the right of Parliament to rule.

As has been said by many in the course of this debate, there is nothing we can do to alter the decision that was taken by the people; neither is there anything we care to do about it because all of us here accept unquestioningly the majority decision of the people. If we did not do so we would not be a democracy and, if we want to continue as a democracy within the EEC, we must provide the best possible democratic safeguards in any legislation we pass in relation to the EEC. If we want to prevent extraordinary powers falling into individual ministerial hands the one way in which we can do that is by ensuring the EEC legislation passed here will have built into it all the necessary safeguards.

What better safeguards could there be than those clearly spelled out in the amendments in the names of Deputy Cosgrave and Deputy Ryan? These are vitally important from the point of view of the creation, for example, of any new criminal offence or for the purpose of conferring any power to limit the personal rights guaranteed by Articles 40, 41, 42, 43 and 44 of the Constitution of Ireland. We must safeguard the rights and freedoms of all our citizens. We would be betraying the rights and freedoms and liberty of our citizens if we allowed Parliament to vest in one man the extraordinary powers proposed in this Bill, powers vested in a Minister of State.

As I said, I believe the Bill would be a much better Bill with this amendment written into it. Those of us who are critical of the Bill would, if this amendment were accepted, have some of our fears allayed. The amendment would be a brake. It would prevent the Minister running amok. We cannot close our eyes to the fact that Ministers have run amok on occasions. The present Minister, as I said, is a reasonable and courteous man and very approachable, but we have no guarantee that those who succeed him will be of the same calibre. We must always, therefore, provide against the man who may act in the manner of a lunatic. We have had such in the past. We will have such in the future. I would appeal to the Minister to accept this very reasonable amendment.

I did not have the pleasure of hearing all the remarks made by the Minister on this amendment. I came in in the middle of them and I am, therefore, somewhat inhibited from saying a great deal about this amendment but, from what I heard, the Minister did not seem to reject outright the desirability of some restriction of the kind proposed in the amendment, although he showed a certain lack of enthusiasm for the amendment. It is, I think, relevant to refer to British legislation here, as Deputy Ryan said, because while the fact that the British made such a provision does not mean that it is necessarily a good thing to do —it is a matter for us to decide and we have to make up our own minds and make our own case—the fact that they have been able to do it, and that this is apparently comparable with the requirements of Community membership does, I think, largely estop the Minister from arguing that we cannot do what we propose to do in those parts of this amendment which are consonant with and in line with British legislation.

From what I have heard of the debate it seems to me that a serious case has been made on each of the points made in the amendment, a case which the Minister, from the part I heard of his speech, did not seek completely to rebut. The feasibility of doing something along these lines, even if it may be necessary to vary slightly the wording in this amendment, is demonstrated by the fact that much of what is in this amendment is, in fact, the British legislation. It seems to me we have, therefore, reached the point at which we can reasonably ask the Minister to consider what has been said in this debate between now and the Report Stage and to come back to us with an amendment to meet the case made. I think it is a reasonable case and one which is capable of being met by an amendment, though some change may be required in the form of the amendment before the House. I would, therefore, ask him to consider our proposals, to consider the discussion that has taken place in the House and the views that were expressed here and to come back with some proposal on the Report Stage to meet those views.

What I was saying when Deputy FitzGerald came in was that during the referendum people expressed anxieties about the range of powers given to us by the public to change the Constitution. I have never believed and neither do I believe now that the Minister will have power to change Articles 40, 41, 42, 43 and so on and, in arguing these points, we have, I think, been guilty of losing sight of the actual Bill itself and what it does. It does put an onus on the Minister of coming to the Oireachtas with legislation designed to confirm orders he thinks necessary and every order made by the Minister will lapse unless it is confirmed by legislation here.

As I pointed out, this will have two effects—not alone the total effect of the order lapsing but it is bound to affect the preparation of regulations if these regulations have to be made the subject of confirmatory legislation. For that reason I and the Government believe that section 4, which makes provision for that, gives a great deal more watchdog power to the Dáil than any other procedure. To accept all these limitations without, as Deputy Cruise-O'Brien said, experience of how it will work would be to do away with the principle in the Bill of the Minister being able to take quick action to implement acts of the institutions of the Community which it will be to our benefit to implement and afterwards to have the Dáil and Seanad, the Oireachtas, confirm them by law. This is fundamental in the Bill. If I accept this amendment that fundamental is gone and we will have no experience of it. It seems to me to be a good idea to have this.

We are facing a new situation in which we shall require to be able to fulfil our obligations under the act of accession to the treaties. Most of the time we shall be expected to react quickly and implement in our domestic legislation directives of the Communities. It appears to me only prudent to make it possible to do this and afterwards have the legislation in the Dáil, which if it is not successful would mean that the regulations would lapse. That is a very powerful control by the Dáil while at the same time allowing full freedom for us as a State to fulfil the obligations which we have undertaken in the act of accession.

I did accept an idea from Deputy Tully —and it was a worry to me— that making the confirmatory legislation come in at the end of the following year could mean quite a long period in which something would be in force, and I have undertaken to see if we can draft a way in which this can be done every six months. So that, as of now, we could envisage a Minister making a regulation for which he would have to get confirmation from the Dáil in six months' time. The power to do so is given to him so that the country can benefit from quickly implementing directives of the Communities and the care to make sure he does not use unnecessary power because the Dáil can take the power away and have regulations lapsed and so cease to exist. We should give it a chance to work that way.

I should like to be clear on this. I understand from what the Minister says that if the Minister makes a regulation as it stands now it must be brought within 12 months before the Dáil for confirmation. I gather that the Minister is prepared to reduce this to three months. If these regulations are not passed by the Dáil they will be rescinded. Am I right?

If they are not confirmed, they lapse.

Is there any reason the draft should not come to the Dáil before the regulation is made? That seems to be the normal procedure generally in legislation, or with regulations. That seems to be the simple point at issue and I think the amendment endeavours to secure that. This would provide a greater safeguard. If a regulation is brought to the Dáil what will be presented is a fait accompli. The regulation is there for three months or six months. The Minister says three months but if we happen to be in Recess it might be six months. Why not reverse the procedure and surely this would satisfy the proposers of the amendment? It would also be a more democratic way of proceeding. Can the Minister give any real reason why we should not do this.

The Dáil decided in a division about half an hour ago that we would not do it that way.

That was on section 2, which enabled us to step under a travelling bus.

I agree that it could be brought in again.

Section 3 merely means that after we join the Community, we are giving power to the Minister to which some of us object. There is quite a difference between the two.

The Minister is harping on the retrospective power of the Dáil to intervene by way of a debate six months—or whatever the period is—afterwards is rather missing the point. Earlier in the debate I think he accepted that some of the decisions, recommendations, directives and so on of the Community would best be implemented here by way of legislation but most of them in practice, because of the matters of detail involved, would best be implemented by way of regulation. Already, we have a division here between the different types of Community decisions requiring different kinds of action in this House. We have been concerned with how we might segregate the two so as to ensure that all the matters that are proper for the House to discuss by way of legislation would come to us in that way. Part of our discussion related to having a committee in regard to that.

We are concerned in this amendment that, given that we have not, in fact, got any method so far in the amendments by which the House or a committee of the House can ensure that matters which ought to be considered by the Dáil come to the Dáil, we can at least, as the amendment proposes, take certain types of legislation, which of their nature are unsuitable to be dealt with by regulation and which should not even be considered without coming to the Dáil and exempt them and say to the Minister: "We have not so far succeeded in tying you down as to precisely what should be done by way of legislation and what should be done by regulation; we cannot lay down a general and absolute criterion with which you can check each time and decide what to do but what we can do is leave you, in the absence of any adequate parliamentary procedure, general discretion in the matter which will enable you in the vast majority of instances to proceed by regulation. But we are saying that there are certain things which are so serious that we could not contemplate their being dealt with by way of regulation even if the Dáil has the power to come back six months later and annul them. We are listing the things which we think fall into that category".

We are asking the Minister: "Are we reasonable in that?" Is it reasonable to say that taxation should not be imposed in any circumstances but that if and when—it only happens very occasionally—the Community issues a directive or decision requiring legislation on our part which involves an increase in taxation here, then on those fairly rare occasions these matters must come to the House and that in accordance with general principles of government, to which there are few exceptions —some, but few—we would wish to have a voice in this. We have made some exceptions because, for instance, customs duties are imposed by the Government and then dealt with by confirmatory order. Those exceptions relate to customs duties which are decided by an Irish Government in the particular interests of Ireland, but here we are talking of taxation being imposed in the interests of the Community as a whole. We think when taxation of that kind is involved it is a matter for the House to consider and not an appropriate matter for delegated legislation.

I am asking the Minister: "Is that a reasonable proposition?" I accept that these things could be annulled by the Dáil refusing to confirm orders some months later; we know that and it is a possible, but not in our view, an adequate way of dealing with the vast bulk of regulations. We would prefer that the House would have a chance to deal with them, if it sought to do so, at the very time. We want to segregate those things for which that method is inappropriate. Therefore, for the Minister to continue referring to the availability of this power of the Dáil to annul things afterwards is to miss the entire point of the argument. That is all right as a general procedure.

What the Minister could argue if he wished to do so—he has not done so—is that in the particular instances we raise the matters are of such little importance that they could be dealt with by regulation. I have been trying several times to help the Minister to put the case in a sufficiently cogent way that we could possibly consider it: that is sometimes the job of the Opposition. The Minister has not come back to say to us: "We have this six months' power and I think that in these instances here that is adequate because I think it is all right to impose increased taxation by way of regulation and leave it to the Dáil six months afterwards." Or: "I think it is all right for the Minister for Justice to move by way of regulation and come back to the Dáil six months afterwards." If the Minister tried to make those propositions we would consider them but the truth is that the Minister knows that the propositions concerned are ones that he could not make in a number of instances here with any conviction. He is therefore avoiding the argument. I found it frustrating in part of this debate that the Minister does not confront the arguments; he sidesteps them. This is frustrating to those who are trying to argue in a sensible way.

I ask the Minister to stand up and tell the House now whether he thinks, naming each of these items, that it is correct that he should have the power to deal with them by way of regulation and that the Dáil can do nothing about it for six months later. Does he really believe that? I do not think he does believe it in respect of some of these items. I believe he is dodging saying this because he himself has doubts. If so, he shares our doubts. Then let us together compile a list of those things which because of their very nature are so serious that in all circumstances they must be dealt with by way of legislation and in no circumstances should be dealt with by way of regulation even with the Dáil power to confirm the matter six months later.

Do not let us dodge the issue now by talking vaguely about the Dáil's power. Let us deal with each of these individual items. If the Minister thinks it is perfectly all right for him to make regulations to administer justice in the Dáil and we can deal with them only six months after the system of justice may have administered many injustices, let him say so, but if he does not say so and is not even prepared to argue the case for opposing the amendment, he ought at least to be willing to go away and consider it. We do not ask him to accept it necessarily at this moment. If he is willing to say that he sees justice in what we say, that there is a point in regard to some of the issues, that he is doubtful about others, that he will consider the matter and come back with an amendment on Report Stage, we will be happy to let the matter rest at that. If he is not prepared to do that, not prepared to give reasons for not accepting our proposition, not prepared to argue his case, even, at that stage, we have no alternative but to press the amendment.

We would like to support the appeal just made to the Minister by Deputy Garret FitzGerald. I speak, of course, on behalf of a party which opposed entry on the terms proposed by the Government but we, like everybody else here, are bound by the decision of the electorate which was absolutely clear, to go in to Europe. But, we think the fact that the electorate did take that decision, the fact that a direct decision of the people is governing all our proceedings here, does impose on us all, and we are conscious of this, a duty to treat this whole matter a little bit outside the regular confrontation process in which we have a "go" at each other from one side of the House to the other. We know, as we do not know on many other things, what the general will of the electorate is on this matter. We realise that this imposes certain restraints on the Opposition but we suggest that it ought to impose certain restraints on the Government also, that they ought not to say: "We know best. That is it. We have decided that these amendments would restrict the powers we are seeking and therefore we are not going to accept them". So, I hope the Minister will not flatly say that he rejects these amendments. We hope that he will be able to say: "The wording is not what we would like but the arguments put forward here have some merit and we will do our level best to enshrine as much as we can of that in amendments of our own".

In one or two things that the Minister said he seemed to hold out hope of that. In referring to subsection (v) of amendment No. 9 he seemed to suggest that they could rule out at any rate the creation of any new indictable offence under this. That is the kind of point that can come out of this debate.

I am not really responsible on the Labour side to argue particularly in favour of what has been so well argued for on the Fine Gael side on the Fine Gael amendments but surely the basic principles in almost all of these must be unexceptionable. Surely it ought to be possible to fit them in in words that are acceptable to the Government. I hope very much that the Government will be able to do that so that this very important measure will go through the House with the degree of consensus that it is clear the electorate would expect from us on this issue and not just dealt with as a contentious matter, that the Government have the majority, they override the Opposition, that is it. If that is the spirit in which we go into Europe, it does not bode very well for us.

I am not making a polemical point against the Minister because I think the Minister would like to deal with it, in this way and I imagine he will make an effort to meet us here. And when I say that, of course, it is appropriate that I should acknowledge, and acknowledge again, the degree to which the Minister has in fact met some of the points we raised. We would not underestimate the concession made by the Minister when, in deference to a point made by Deputy Tully on behalf of the Labour Party, he agreed to the six months period of review. That is very important. It is an example of the value of parliamentary review and particularly committee review of this kind of thing. Something important is achieved there—a greater degree of democratic control over this process.

I would like to put this point to the Minister again, that this six-monthly exercise should not be limited to, "Let us have a look at the regulations that have gone through and let us see whether we approve them or not" and a limited short debate on that. The Minister has already in part replied on this but I want him and his colleagues to keep on considering it. I hope that the debate would be one for which considerable time, adequate time, would be provided, not only for the not inconsiderable task of reviewing regulations already there but for having a look at how the whole process works, having a look back at how well-founded the criticisms and objections that have been raised here have, in fact, proved to be and how well the Act which we shall by that time have passed on the basis of this document as amended, has worked, and that there will be an opportunity not only for review of the regulations passed but for review of the working of the Bill as a whole. That is to say, that the Government will allow the possibility of amendments to the Act. If we can have assurances on that at some stage—I think the Minister has indicated that he is not yet fully ready to give such assurances at this stage of the debate—but if he can tell us that he will come back to that on Report Stage, that he is ready at least to look now with an open mind at how far he can meet us on these amendments and on this point, it will be very helpful, not only to the House at this stage of this discussion but also to the spirit in which the Irish people are entering the European Communities.

Deputy FitzGerald said that I was side-stepping. In fact, I dealt with this point when he was not here. The fact of his not being here does not mean that I was side-stepping. I will do it again, if it will do any good.

First of all, I should like to go back to the principle of the Bill being to make it possible for us to fulfil our obligations with the speed that is necessary. The House may not be aware of the difficulties which will be ahead for the structures of the State to fit it. After a while in the European Communities, we may find the pace would become more leisurely; we will get used to it; but, it will be necessary to be able to have decisions taken quickly and applied, just as I accept it is necessary to have the Parliament make sure that Ministers do not take too wide powers. The House will have to acknowledge that it will be necessary and the method we have suggested for that is that the Minister would make the regulation, that the regulation would die if Parliament does not confirm it. It is not quite accurate to say, as Deputy FitzGerald said, that it is retrospective legislation, because it is dealing with regulations or Acts which may continue in effect if they are confirmed.

Yes, I accept that. I do not think I used the word "retrospective". If I did, it was wrong.

So long as the Deputy knows that. The amendment suggests taking from the Minister the power to impose or increase taxation. Taking account of the limited area of directives from Europe and, at the same time, the existence of the Imposition of Duties Act, 1957 this is not consistent. It may be necessary for a Minister to be able to do that and afterwards come to the Dáil for confirmation. That is quite an adequate protection. I was puzzled about, "(ii) to administer justice" because I see no situation where a Minister would make regulations to administer justice. I do not think that arises. Paragraph (ii) reads: "to declare acts to be infringements of the law which were not so at the date of their commission." That does not arise either. That is the position and we do not have to state it in the Bill. It will continue to be the position in our Constitution and in the European conventions.

Paragraph (iv) reads: "to make any provision taking effect from a date earlier than that of the making of the instrument containing the provision". This is necessary. The Community have yet to decide what instrument they will use. They have made a decision which is retrospective. If they have any directives with retrospective effect we should be able to fit in with them. With regard to (v), "to create any new criminal offence", I said I could personally see the desirability of limiting this to an indictable——

How is it that the British do not require to make regulations with a view to making the instrument concerned retrospective, and we have to?

I do not assume that everything the British do is right.

The British may find themselves with a problem but it is not for me to solve their problems. I am taking care of what we do, and the provisions we are making will make it possible for us——

Are we so much less efficient that we cannot manage our own business?

The Deputy has too much of an admiration for our neighbours. They may be wrong. I am not saying they are wrong.

If they are prepared to chance it we should do it too in the interests of parliamentary democracy.

I said earlier today that I am not at all certain that the way the British legislated has added to the clarity of the situation for them. This is a much better Bill. However, it would be invidious to compare this with the British Bill. It is quite wrong for anybody always to assume, without even having a test of a situation, that what is done in Britain is right and what is done here is wrong.

I did not assume it was right. The fact that they are doing it shows that it is feasible.

It is feasible to get it through Parliament but whether it will survive without causing difficulties is another question.

If it causes difficulties what will they do? They will amend the legislation and so could we.

I think ours is a better Bill. I was dealing with creating a new criminal offence. This might have a limitation. It would not be possible for a Minister to create a new indictable offence and that would limit it to the level of a District Court offence and put limits on the penalties. I do not think paragraph (vi) is necessary. There is nothing in our thinking which would make it necessary to prevent the Minister having powers under Articles 41 to 44. If there were, we have the protection of legislation six months afterwards. The important thing is that this legislation will be coming up in the Dáil and the Dáil will be able to say: "No. This cannot survive."

We have a Bill here based on power for the Minister to act quickly with confirmation from the Dáil, and without that confirmation the regulations would lapse. It meets the two points: the need for a capacity to fulfil our obligations and the watchdog of Parliament to make sure that powers are not abused.

What is the position in the Six member states of the Common Market? What way do they work it? Do they do it in the same way as the Minister wants us to do it, or do they have prior discussions?

Seeking power to do it through ministerial regulation does not prevent a decision being made to have many of the directives of the Community implemented here by legislation in the first instance. It is left to each country to do it in its own way and all the countries do it in a different way.

What is the usual procedure in the Common Market?

Each country has a different procedure.

I understand that in two countries the matter is referred to the national parliament before it is subsequently ratified. They are Holland and the Federal Republic of Germany.

In dealing with the directives of the Community each country is left to do it in its own way. The regulations of the Community are directly applicable. Each country can select its own method of doing it.

Is that not a very cogent argument in favour of the Minister doing what we suggest? We are still a free nation.

I am not looking for extra powers for Europe. I am looking for powers for Ministers to act in a way that makes it possible to fulfil the obligations we have undertaken and powers for the Dáil to control that by confirmation afterwards.

Why not before?

I think that would get all blocked up.

The Minister cannot indicate what the six countries within the EEC are doing. Does not that bear out what I quoted last night? Dr. Mansholt said that the EEC is a monster with many heads and that it is very difficult to explain clearly to people what it is intended to achieve. Dr. Mansholt was quite right. We now hear the reply given to Deputy Esmonde by the Minister who has been negotiating on behalf of this country for a considerable length of time.

The method of implementation was not under negotiation.

I am not saying the Minister should know everything but it would be reasonable to expect that he would inquire what the position was in other countries and whether the legislation they passed was exactly similar to ours. The Minister has stated that each individual country brings in its own legislation. If he had seen their legislation would it not have been a guideline for him, and we could then base our legislation on the most liberal points in that legislation. To me this would have been a commonsense procedure. If I had been more intimately acquainted with the Minister I would have whispered that advice into his ear before tonight so that he could have had the information readily available in the event of questions being put by Deputy Esmonde and other Deputies who are entitled to query the Minister about the legislation prevailing in other countries, and how it is working. The point raised by Deputy Esmonde should have been answered more clearly. It is difficult for the Minister to be able to answer Deputy Esmonde when Dr. Mansholt himself tells us that the EEC is a monster with many heads.

A vote was taken on amendment No. 7.

That is right.

Our amendment was defeated. We are now discussing amendments Nos. 8, 9 and 12 which have nothing to do with prior notice. Amendments Nos. 8 and 9 deal with the type of legislation which it is considered should be excluded from directions or regulations made.

The Minister, subsequent to amendment No. 7 being defeated, made a concession which, while it does not go the whole way, is one which is appreciated; but if we are to have any decision on the Bill, if we are to make any progress on it, with all due respect, we should stick exactly to what we are supposed to be talking about. What we want to do by our amendment No. 8, which sets out that the power conferred in the foregoing subsection shall not include power to repeal or amend any part of the domestic law of the State, is to ensure that the domestic law may not be interfered with by a direction which the Minister may say he has got from the EEC. That is what we are discussing. The Fine Gael amendment No. 9 is more specific. Amendment No. 12 is ours again but it is in fact on the lines of amendment No. 8.

In an effort to bring the debate back on the rails, I should like to know if the Minister has any further comment to make on the suggestion with regard particularly to amendment No. 8 and amendment No. 9. Can he say if he is prepared to concede that certain types of regulations which will be an effort to change the domestic law of this State should not be dealt with in the same way as other regulations? Amendment No. 8 has been defeated and I cannot ask him to go back and shorten the time for discussion on this amendment, but perhaps as I had to be out of the House for a while, the Minister might let me know if he is sticking to his guns and is not prepared to accept the amendment.

Deputy Esmonde asked a question as to what is done in other countries and the Minister made a statement on what he thought was done. I would like to read two sentences which tell us what is done and they are relevant to what Deputy Tully has said. They are from "The EEC: National Parliaments in Community Decision-Making" by Michael Niblock:

In West Germany, however, Directives are given effect by laws, statutory orders, and administrative decrees, depending on the extent of the changes required to be made to German laws and regulations; if applying a Directives involves amending a Federal Law then the Bundestag has to be brought in. The Dutch arrangements tend to follow the German pattern.

Would the Minister explain to us, if the Germans and Dutch can deal with their problems like that, why he has to have power to amend laws by regulation?

I think the Deputy is quite wrong in saying that I have to have power——

Before the Minister replies——

The Dáil is the whole basis——

(Interruptions.)

That does not answer the point.

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

Is amendment No. 8 withdrawn?

I would like you to put it, Sir.

Amendment put and declared lost.

I move amendment No. 9:

In page 3, between lines 17 and 18, to insert a new subsection as follows:—

"( ) The power conferred in the foregoing subsection shall not include power—

(i) to impose or increase taxation; or

(ii) to administer justice; or

(iii) to declare acts to be infringements of the law which were not so at the date of their commission; or

(iv) to make any provision taking effect from a date earlier than that of the making of the instrument containing the provision; or

(v) to create any new criminal offence; or

(vi) to confer any power to limit the personal rights guaranteed by Articles 40, 41, 42, 43 & 44 of the Constitution of Ireland and the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms."

Amendment put.
The Committee divided; Tá, 48; Nil, 59.

  • Barry, Peter.
  • Barry, Richard.
  • Begley, Michael.
  • Browne, Noel.
  • Bruton, John.
  • Burke, Joan.
  • Burke, Richard.
  • Burton, Philip.
  • Clinton, Mark A.
  • Collins, Edward.
  • Conlan, John F.
  • Coogan, Fintan.
  • Cooney, Patrick M.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Cosgrave, Liam.
  • Coughlan, Stephen.
  • Creed, Donal.
  • Crotty, Kieran.
  • Cruise-O'Brien, Conor.
  • Dockrell, Henry P.
  • Dockrell, Maurice E.
  • Donegan, Patrick S.
  • Donnellan, John.
  • Dunne, Thomas.
  • Esmonde, Sir Anthony C.
  • Finn, Martin.
  • Flanagan, Oliver J.
  • Governey, Desmond.
  • Harte, Patrick D.
  • Hogan O'Higgins, Brigid.
  • Jones, Denis F.
  • Kavanagh, Liam.
  • Kenny, Henry.
  • L'Estrange, Gerald.
  • Lynch, Gerard.
  • McLaughlin, Joseph.
  • McMahon, Lawrence.
  • Malone, Patrick.
  • O'Donovan, John.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F.
  • O'Reilly, Paddy.
  • O'Sullivan, John L.
  • Pattison, Séamus.
  • Ryan, Richie.
  • Spring, Dan.
  • Taylor, Francis.
  • Timmins, Godfrey.
  • Tully, James.

Níl

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Lorcan.
  • Barrett, Sylvester.
  • Boylan, Terence.
  • Brady, Philip A.
  • Briscoe, Ben.
  • Brosnan, Seán.
  • Browne, Patrick.
  • Browne, Seán.
  • Burke, Patrick J.
  • Carter, Frank.
  • Childers, Erskine.
  • Colley, George.
  • Collins, Gerard.
  • Connolly, Gerard C.
  • Cowen, Bernard.
  • Cronin, Jerry.
  • Crowley, Flor.
  • Cunningham, Liam.
  • de Valera, Vivion.
  • Dowling, Joe.
  • Fahey, Jackie.
  • Faulkner, Pádraig.
  • FitzGerald, Gene.
  • Fitzpatrick, Tom (Dublin Central).
  • Flanagan, Seán.
  • French, Seán.
  • Geoghegan, John.
  • Gibbons, Hugh.
  • Gibbons, James.
  • Gogan, Richard P.
  • Healy, Augustine A.
  • Herbert, Michael.
  • Hillery, Patrick J.
  • Hilliard, Michael.
  • Hussey, Thomas.
  • Kenneally, William.
  • Kitt, Michael F.
  • Lalor, Patrick J.
  • Lemass, Noel T.
  • Lenihan, Brian.
  • Loughnane, William A.
  • Lynch, Celia.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacSharry, Ray.
  • Meaney, Thomas.
  • Molloy, Robert.
  • Moore, Seán.
  • Nolan, Thomas.
  • Noonan, Michael.
  • O'Connor, Timothy.
  • O'Kennedy, Michael.
  • O'Leary, John.
  • O'Malley, Des.
  • Power, Patrick.
  • Smith, Michael.
  • Smith, Patrick.
  • Tunney, Jim.
  • Wyse, Pearse.
Tellers: Tá, Deputies Timmins and Kavanagh; Níl, Deputies S. Browne and Meaney.
Amendment declared lost.
Amendment No. 10 not moved.

I move amendment No. 11:

In subsection (2), page 3, line 20, to delete "proper" and substitute "necessary".

The purpose of this amendment is to tighten up the Bill in the same way as Fine Gael's proposal tidied up the Third Amendment to the Constitution Bill which was voted on by the people. The Third Amendment to the Constitution Bill as introduced provided that no provision of the Constitution could invalidate laws enacted, acts done or measures adopted by the State consequent on membership of the Communities. In the Dáil the Fine Gael Party amended that Bill by providing that the words "consequent on" should be omitted and should be replaced by the words "necessitated by the obligations of". The purpose of our amendment, which the Government accepted, was to ensure that nothing would be done as a consequence of the extra power given in the amendment which would not be necessitated by the obligations of the European Communities.

In this Bill the Government are asking the House to give to the Minister power to make regulations which may contain such incidental, supplementary and consequential provisions as appear to the Minister making the regulations to be proper for the purposes of the regulations. We do not think the word "proper" is sufficiently tight to ensure that the Minister does not use the power now given to him to make regulations which are beyond what is required by the obligations of the European Communities. What may appear proper to the Minister may not be necessary and I think the Minister would agree with me on that point. The Minister might have a different measure of propriety to what might be absolutely required by the European Communities. The whole purpose of the power being given here is to enable this State to implement the obligations of the Communities and no more. We should not give in section 3 any power to a Minister to exceed the purpose of this legislation. The sole purpose of the legislation is to enable the State to comply with the obligations of the Communities—that and no more.

The draft regulations might be convenient from the administrative point of view but this House and the people are not concerned with administrative convenience. We are concerned with what power we give to Ministers and the purposes for which they are given that power and the way they use it. Our amendment complies with our obligations and does not in any way inhibit a Minister from discharging his obligations to the Dáil, to the people and to the Community. I hope the Minister will accept this reasonable amendment.

The difference in the words may not be very great but I should like the Minister to explain why the word "proper" was used instead of "necessary". It is possible the Minister might consider something was proper but might not be necessary. Before we debate the amendment, I should like to hear the Minister's explanation why this word was used.

It is the draftsman's phraseology for what the Minister would consider proper to do to implement our obligations under the Act of Accession. Perhaps the House would prefer that it should read "as it appears to the Minister to be necessary" instead of using the word "proper"? So long as the Minister maintains the power that is all right.

The Minister might consider it proper but it might not be necessary.

It seems the House will accept the word "necessary" but will not accept the word "proper".

Is the Minister accepting the amendment?

Amendment agreed to.
Amendment No. 12 not moved.

I move amendment No. 13:

To add to the section new subsections as follows:—

"( ) Every regulation made under this section shall be laid before Dáil Éireann as soon as may be after it is made and Dáil Éireann may, within the next twenty-one days on which it has sat after the regulation is laid before it, amend the regulation in a way which, in the opinion of any Committee which Dáil Éireann may set up for this purpose, is consistent with the provision of the original Community directive which the regulation seeks to implement.

( ) Any Committee referred to in the foregoing subsection shall have power

(a) to examine and advise a Minister of State and Irish Members of the European Parliament on all EEC Commission proposals prior to decisions thereon being taken by the Council of Ministers, and

(b) to decide whether any EEC directive (i.e. proposal which is not directly applicable) should be implemented by regulation under this Act or by new legislation.

Amendment put.
The Committee divided: Tá, 46; Nil, 58.

  • Barry, Peter.
  • Barry, Richard.
  • Begley, Michael.
  • Bruton, John.
  • Burke, Joan.
  • Burke, Richard.
  • Burton, Philip.
  • Clinton, Mark A.
  • Collins, Edward.
  • Conlan, John F.
  • Coogan, Fintan.
  • Cooney, Patrick M.
  • Corish, Brendan.
  • Cosgrave, Liam.
  • Coughlan, Stephen.
  • Creed, Donal.
  • Crotty, Kieran.
  • Cruise-O'Brien, Conor.
  • Dockrell, Henry P.
  • Dockrell, Maurice E.
  • Donegan, Patrick S.
  • Donnellan, John.
  • Dunne, Thomas.
  • Esmonde, Sir Anthony C.
  • Finn, Martin.
  • FitzGerald, Garrett.
  • Flanagan, Oliver J.
  • Governey, Desmond.
  • Harte, Patrick D.
  • Jones, Denis F.
  • Kavanagh, Liam.
  • Kenny, Henry.
  • L'Estrange, Gerald.
  • Lynch, Gerard.
  • McLaughlin, Joseph.
  • McMahon, Lawrence.
  • Malone, Patrick.
  • O'Donovan, John.
  • O'Higgins, Thomas F.
  • O'Sullivan, John L.
  • Pattison, Séamus.
  • Ryan, Richie.
  • Spring, Dan.
  • Taylor, Francis.
  • Timmins, Godfrey.
  • Tully, James.

Níl

  • Aiken, Frank.
  • Allen, Lorcan.
  • Barrett, Sylvester.
  • Boylan, Terence.
  • Brady, Philip A.
  • Briscoe, Ben.
  • Brosnan, Seán.
  • Browne, Patrick.
  • Browne, Seán.,
  • Burke, Patrick J.
  • Carter, Frank.
  • Childers, Erskine.
  • Colley, George.
  • Collins, Gerard.
  • Connolly, Gerard C.
  • Cowen, Bernard.
  • Cronin, Jerry.
  • Crowley, Flor.
  • Cunningham, Liam.
  • de Valera, Vivion.
  • Dowling, Joe.
  • Fahey, Jackie.
  • Faulkner, Pádraig.
  • Fitzgerald, Gene.
  • Fitzpatrick, Tom (Dublin Central)
  • O'Connor, Timothy.
  • O'Kennedy, Michael.
  • O'Leary, John.
  • O'Malley, Des.
  • Flanagan, Seán.
  • French, Seán.
  • Geoghegan, John.
  • Gibbons, Hugh.
  • Gibbons, James.
  • Cogan, Richard P.
  • Healy, Augustine A.
  • Herbert, Michael.
  • Hillery, Patrick J.
  • Hilliard, Michael.
  • Hussey, Thomas.
  • Kenneally, William.
  • Kitt, Michael F.
  • Lalor, Patrick J.
  • Lemass, Noel T.
  • Lenihan, Brian.
  • Loughnane, William A.
  • Lynch, Celia.
  • McEllistrim, Thomas.
  • MacSharry, Ray.
  • Meaney, Thomas.
  • Molloy, Robert.
  • Moore, Seán.
  • Nolan, Thomas.
  • Noonan, Michael.
  • Power, Patrick.
  • Smith, Michael.
  • Tunney, Jim.
  • Wyse, Pearse.
Tellers:— Tá: Deputies Timmins and Kavanagh; Níl: Deputies S. Browne and Meaney.
Amendment declared lost.
Question proposed: "That section 3, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

All I want to say in relation to section 3, as it now stands, is that I think it is absolutely pitiful and disgraceful that Dáil Éireann has not got the guts to do what the German Bundestag, the Dutch Parliament and the British Parliament have done and that is to put some curb upon ministerial power to make regulations to comply with European Communities obligations. Why should we, with the aid of the Fianna Fáil Party, have belittled ourselves as a Parliament? It is thoroughly disgraceful and is clearly indicative of the contempt that Fianna Fáil have for the wishes of the people and for the wishes of the people's representatives. They want to rule absolutely, to be absolute rulers without any review, not even the benefit of comment by the elected representatives of the people. It is thoroughly contemptible and Dáil Éireann, I believe, will live to regret this day.

On a point of correction, the Deputy said that Fianna Fáil want to rule without any review. The review is in section 4.

After the event.

The Dáil will have to confirm regulations and that is a review and the regulations will lapse if the Dáil does not confirm them. The Deputy should be aware also that it is to Ministers and the Dáil that power is given and not to any political party. His own thinking on the future of the country is obvious.

With respect to what the Minister has said he is wrong. The decision tonight was taken with the votes of the Fianna Fáil Party and nobody else. It is they who believe that the Government have an absolute right to rule without regard to the wishes of anybody else in the community. The German Bundestag, the Dutch Parliament and the British Parliament have decided that the powers now conferred on Ministers here by the Fianna Fáil majority should not be given to any Government but should lie with Parliament. That is the difference and the Minister cannot escape from that. He has shown Fianna Fáil's contempt for the whole parliamentary and democratic process. It is no use to say that six months after the event we can come along and try to change taxation, criminal law and other fundamental matters. That is no remedy. The damage is then done. What we sought was a right of trying to colour, influence, advise, beforehand. You have denied us that. You have now rendered Dáil Éireann impotent and sterile. That was your wish and you now have your wish. I hope you are thoroughly ashamed of yourselves.

Any regulation made by a Minister will lapse if not confirmed by Dáil Éireann. Even after the whole day the Deputy does not seem to know what we are doing. It is not fair of him to say what he has said about the Dáil. He must accept majority rule.

They will operate for two years, the Bill says.

No. The Deputy may not have been here. We have decided to provide for six months confirmation and they will lapse if they are not confirmed by the Dáil.

I heard what the Minister is hoping to do between now and the Report Stage but even six months criminal law, six months taxation will operate. Why, if the Minister says it is valid to do it after the event, will he not allow the Dáil to be consulted beforehand? He has shown he does not want to consult the Dáil.

If a majority of the Dáil, which is what counts, want to, they can, immediately a regulation is made, introduce private legislation to overthrow it, at once. What we have done here is bring in effective law that makes it possible for us to take on our obligations satisfactorily and quickly and at the same time give the Dáil its right to confirm if such regulations are to be continued.

Can the Minister not answer a simple question?

No. I have been getting complicated questions all day.

I asked a question before and I got no answer. If three other Parliaments, the Dutch Parliament, the German Parliament, and now the British Parliament, are legislating to do it, can allow the matter to be discussed before it is made a regulation or an act in the EEC, why can we not do the same?

We have not excluded that. It still remains a power to have any of the directives of the institution made into our domestic law through direct legislation if this decision is made by the Government.

Surely we have discussed this all night, the amendments have been defeated and I think we are just wasting time.

The Deputy is right.

We are not wasting time, we are pinning responsibility. The Minister has no problem. He is off to Brussels. We have to live with it.

(Interruptions.)
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 4.

We understand from the Minister that he proposes between now and Report Stage to prepare an amendment to insert the period of six months as the period within which we could review the Government's misconduct, so I am prepared on that account not to move the amendment No. 14.

I think it is a sensible idea because we do not want to delay on this matter any longer.

Amendment No. 14 not moved.

Amendments Nos. 15 and 16 are related and may be discussed together.

I move amendment No. 15:

In subsection (2), page 3, line 36, to delete "a majority" and substitute "one-third".

I must frankly admit that there is some confusion about the import of section 4. On first reading it would appear that the purpose of recalling the Dáil would be to review what the Government have already done but on a closer reading it would appear that, in fact, if the Dáil is not recalled, what the Government have done would collapse if they did not get the benediction of the authority of the Dáil to continue what they had done. I would like the Minister to clarify any confusion which might exist before we press the amendment.

I think perhaps we were too solicitious for the Government's welfare in putting down this amendment. To me it reads if the section as it stands is allowed to stand it will require a majority of the Dáil to recall it. I do not know why it was put down in this way. I have been reading it the same way as Deputy Ryan has. If the regulation lapses, not being moved within the statutory period, then it is the Government's responsibility to see it does not lapse if they want to continue it. If there is another interpretation of it as Deputy Ryan says, perhaps the Minister might explain it to us as otherwise we will leave them to look after that part of the business themselves and withdraw our amendment.

As the Deputy knows, a regulation made by a Minister will lapse if not confirmed at a time fixed by the Oireachtas. We have in mind here the other procedures which Deputies would like to avail of when a regulation is first published.

Such as?

Such as parliamentary questions, motions, private motions, motions on the Adjournment, or legislation, as I mentioned. If the Dáil is adjourned these would not be available to Deputies. I do not think they would lapse in the ten days mentioned. They would not lapse until the failure to confirm by legislation six months afterwards.

I am more confused than ever because if it had been as originally intended, in operation up to two years, surely ample opportunity should have been given to ask the questions, put down the motions or use whatever facilities were available. Again, I think that possibly we have misinterpreted but the Minister's explanation has not made it any clearer to me.

The Deputy thought that at the end of the period if the Dáil were not in session it would lapse. It was not the intention. The intention was that if Deputies wanted to use the normal process available to talk on the matter, to oppose it by motion, private motion, motions on the Adjournment or by legislation if the Dáil were not in session this would not be open to them.

It would not be open to them for a considerable period before that.

I can see the point. The Deputy makes the point that it is up to the Government to ensure that these matters can be discussed.

Yes. Is this not a good example where, if we wrote our laws in plain English, we could understand them. The draftsman does not understand it. The Minister does not understand it either. This is another example of this sort of gobbledegook.

This is a double negative and that is where the confusion arose. As the Fine Gael Party have seen through the gobbledegook of the double negative we do not propose to press our amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment No. 16 not moved.
Section 4 agreed to.
NEW SECTION.

I move amendment No. 17:

Before section 5 to insert a new section as follows:—

"The enactments mentioned in the Schedule to this Act (being enactments that are superseded or to be superseded by reason of the European Communities' obligations and of the provision made by this Act in relation thereto or which are not compatible with the European Communities' obligations) are hereby repealed or amended, as the case may be, to the extent specified in the said Schedule with effect from the 1st day of January, 1973".

This Bill is evidence of a thoroughly disgraceful situation. On the 10th May last the people very emphatically authorised this country to join the European Community. One would have thought that even before then the Government and the Government's legal advisers would have had available to them and be able to present to the people a clear statement of the domestic laws of this country which would be qualified or affected by Acts of the European Community. If they did not have it on the 10th May last it was perfectly reasonable to assume that between 10th May and the 8th November following there would have been prepared a comprehensive list of the laws of this State which would stand amended, qualified or abrograted by European Community legislation.

We find, to our absolute horror, this Bill does not contain any schedule of legislation to be amended. There is in the explanatory memorandum an appendix which is described as: "A list of existing Irish legislation which will be affected by Community law". This spells out 100, and possibly more, Acts because some of the Acts are described under inclusive and omnibus clauses like the Enforcement of Court Orders Acts 1926 and 1940 and other Acts like the Courts of Justice Acts 1924 to 1961 which, to my knowledge, include no less than five Acts, so the number of Acts which will be specifically, directly and immediately qualified on the 1st January, 1973, exceeds 100. Even this appendix to the explanatory memorandum does not state in any respect to what extent the Acts in question stand repealed or amended.

This is a disgraceful situation and one to which the Incorporated Law Society have had to draw attention. Everybody is, under our legal system, presumed to know the law. Now we have for the first time on the statutes of this country legislative proof that the Government of the day do not know the law. The Government cannot even produce evidence of the law in an explanatory memorandum to a Bill. They do not know and are not capable of stating or setting out even in the explanatory memorandum the extent to which the existing domestic law of this State is being qualified by Community legislation. They have a caviat in the appendix which reads:

This list sets out the principle enactments which will be affected. The list is comprehensive but does not purport to be exhaustive.

On a personal level the Minister has become immunised against criticism. He is off to Brussels next year and good luck to him but I have worries regarding the part that he will play for this country there since we find that he is leaving behind this nebulous piece of legislation which cannot even set out in Schedules to the Act the laws of this country that are to be amended. I would ask Members to cast their minds back to other pieces of legislation during the years and they will recall Schedules to many Acts which contain the Titles of Acts to be amended. Not only that but the amending Acts specified precisely, line by line, what parts of the former Acts were to be amended or repealed, but here we are with the most far-reaching piece of legislation in our history and we have not got in it a Schedule with a guideline as to what pieces of legislation being amended.

I abhor that any Minister would think so little of the whole parliamentary process as to produce such a careless piece of legislation. Even a first year law student would know enough about the legislative process not to produce anything so ridiculous as this Bill. What is the Minister doing? He is bringing in this piece of legislation to make sweeping amendments to the whole law of Ireland and his attitude is "to hell with you if you do not know the consequences of the legislation. It is your business to find out". The Department of Foreign Affairs do not know the consequences, neither do the Department of Justice nor the office of the Attorney General.

Before the referendum many people did not wish to know.

The Department cannot produce a guide as to the precise consequences of the legislation. In relation to Deputy Corish's intervention, it is one matter to know the general consequences of a decision but—I speak now with my legal hat on—it is another to know what advice one can give to a client when consulted on a particular matter when there is no piece of legislative evidence in existence having the extent of repeals of former legislation. This is an atrocious position. Already the Incorporated Law Society have made the most urgent representations possible to the Government but despite that we get nothing but this clumsy, careless and infantile piece of legislation. Earlier when I suggested that the Government were being contemptuous of Parliament, the Minister took umbrage at my remark. He can carry that umbrage or shrug it off as he wishes but it is absolute proof of their contempt and of their unfitness to govern that they will not tell the people what they are trying to do to them. This is because they do not care about the whole legal and legislative process. They do not care what consequences or penalties may fall on people or what confusion may be caused. So far as the Government are concerned that is somebody else's problem and so the Attorney General, the Minister for Justice, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Finance say: "we will not tell you the law; you can find out for yourselves".

It may well be that there will be a very lucrative world ahead for the legal profession. I do not think that is the intention of the Government but it is the situation they are creating today. While they are creating a whirlwind of profit for the legal profession they will impose on Irish people and Irish business an immense burden of trying to ascertain what is the law. This results from the Government being too lazy and too indifferent to spell it out in the Bill. It is because we are anxious that even at this 11th hour the Government will write into the Bill the extent to which our law is being amended, that we have put down this amendment. For the third time today I find myself saying to the Minister that I am no apologist for the British legislature or for any other legislature but the British Parliament found it possible to spell out the extent to which their laws, which are more ancient than ours, are being amended by the European Communities. They are spelled out in Schedules and appendices to the Bill. We have a legislative history of only 51 years and we have been too lazy and too indifferent to do the same.

I am appalled at the Minister, and my respect for him evaporates when I see him producing such a contemptible Bill, a Bill that is so unhelpful to the people he will leave behind when he goes to Brussels.

It would be very unfair to lay this burden completely on the shoulders of the Minister. The Government are responsible for certain matters and it is they, as a whole, who must carry responsibility for this proposed legislation. Each Minister in his own Department should have been responsible for preparing the necessary documentation. Deputy Ryan said that the Minister was contemptuous of the House in producing the Bill. The Minister knew what he was doing. In a short while the Committee Stage will have been completed.

Deputy Ryan referred also to the question of what advice could be given to clients in respect of amended legislation. Let me remind the House that before the referendum all politicians were advising the electorate but we in the Labour Party were the only people who gave the correct advice. There were a couple of exceptions in other parties but they merely whispered the correct advice. The proof of the pudding is in the eating and we are now saddled with something which, apparently, we must accept. It may be said that there was not time to compile the comprehensive information to which the Deputy has referred. I shudder to think of what will happen on the 1st January next when there will be a whole new set of laws and, I assume, a whole new set of offences. If we do not know what is the law, how is it to be administered?

It may be said also that there were no facilities available to have certain things done. I do not wish to repeat this too often but I would remind the House that an English translation of documentation from the EEC up to the 1st January last is in the Library and up to the present it is available in French. It has not been found possible to translate the latter yet. Yet it is found possible to delegate at least one civil servant to the task of translating the English text into Irish. This has been done. I do not know who will study it. Earlier Deputy Flanagan was defending the rights of Irish speakers to have this documentation and the rights of Irish speakers in this House to know what was going on, but we have not been able to get documentation to show what will be the effect of the legislation we are passing through the House. This is disgraceful. I will not blame the Minister although he must share some of the responsibility since he has had to pilot this Bill through the House. Neither will I blame the parliamentary draftsmen because they work only on what they are given from the Government. Therefore, the entire Government must carry the responsibility for what has been done here.

It appears that what has happened is that the Government, having got the referendum through with such a huge majority, were so tickled that they consider it hardly necessary to do anything more. Maybe they prayed to St. Anthony but, in any case, I do not know how they hope to get out of this mess. The amendments suggested here by Fine Gael would, perhaps bring matters up to date even at this late hour. Will the Minister tell us if it is possible to have the information before the 31st December? The Minister may say that a number of us might not understand the legislation.

I have got Consolidation Bills in this House with tabulated amendments to various legislation, dating away back over 150 years, all listed neatly. They might not mean very much to me unless I was interested in one particular section and went to the trouble of researching on it, but to the legal people who will have to administer this after 1st January it must mean something.

The attempt to put this sort of thing through the House without going to the trouble of showing what is being changed and how it is being changed is nothing short of disgraceful. It is a typical example of what this Government have been doing with practically everything they have handled over the past few years. They may have had, like the rest of us, their little internal squabbles but, over the last 12 months, they should have been in a position to find out what was being done. Surely since last May they should have been able to tabulate the changes which have to be made in legislation in order to comply with EEC conditions.

I am certainly not blaming the Minister for this. I wish him very well in his new office. I do not agree with what the Minister has been doing but I know he has been doing a tremendous amount of work in the EEC and has gone to a lot of trouble. However, those who with him have the responsibility of governing this country must accept the blame for not doing their homework and for not having ready for the House, before this Bill came in, the necessary tabulation.

Where a provision of existing domestic law is in conflict with a provision of directly applicable Community law, the domestic law will be automatically amended or repealed to the extent to which the conflict exists. That is in accordance with the rules of our domestic law on conflicting legislative provisions. It is, therefore, not necessary to amend or repeal individual provisions specifically. The Deputy knows the principle of implied repeal. If you wanted to do it it would require a call on our manpower at this time that we should not devote to that work because they are at much more important work on membership.

Translating it into Irish?

That is one. The point remains that the law is, by the principle we practice of implied repeal, amended or repealed to the extent of the conflict. We have published here a list for the guidance of the public to make them aware what provisions in our domestic law are likely to be affected, as being in conflict with the Community law. That is a guideline for them or their lawyers when they are dealing with something affected by the law, to know that there is a Community regulation which repeals this.

Would the Minister repeat that?

The list would be a guideline.

Which list?

The list we published. It is not exhaustive, but it is a guideline. It indicates to the public and to the lawyers what laws are affected.

The Minister says "affected" but it does not say whether it is the whole of the Bill or the whole of the law or part of the law.

Many areas will not be clear, could not be clear. If there is a conflict the extent of it would have to be confirmed by our own courts, and some by the European courts.

Deputy Ryan mentioned that the British made a list. It is not exhaustive. If we took the list and repealed it or amended it as necessary it would not be exhaustive and it would lead to confusion, because there is an area then not indicated to the public. It is not just for now; as we go on into the future new regulations applied here by the Community will have this effect. The only way we can really catch up with it is to give guidelines to lawyers to watch out for it and read the law, get interpretations from the courts and, as the Taoiseach said when introducing this Bill, to have frequent revision Acts for the specific purpose of dealing with points to be amended or repealed, and this will be done.

When the original Act was going through the House I protested strongly at the terms in which it was drafted. As legislators we do not have to put up with this kind of thing. We do not have to put up with the Government standing on the right foot yesterday in relation to the Marriages Bill and on the left foot today. Yesterday they were going to itemise everything in detail. They were going to repeal a simple provision that marriages could be conducted in a registry office only between the hours of 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. so that the hours would be between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. That was repeated over and over again to the extent of a full page in the Marriages Bill yesterday. No Government can do that kind of thing to me anyway. If I am sufficiently concerned I will tackle them. My own attitude towards this Bill is quite simple. I believe that the original Bill that was produced in relation to our going into the Common Market was wrongly drafted and I said so.

We are on the amendment.

This is an extremely serious matter. I have not taken up much of the time of the House. We have been here all day.

I have been here all day.

The Minister deserves to be here not for one day but for several weeks, on this thing, because this House should be protecting the rights of the people from this kind of business. Even at this eleventh hour let us bring home to the Minister that the Government cannot treat the House on separate days to completely different methods of legislation. Even the Parliamentary Secretary agrees with me.

It is only the tenth hour.

In this House there is the tenth hour and the eleventh hour. There is this kind of suggestion that where there is a conflict, and I took down the Minister's actual words, the domestic law will be automatically repealed. All that was required yesterday in the Marriage Bill was that this matter should have been referred to once, that the words 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. were to be replaced by the words 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. — period. That was sufficient. But it was repeated over and over again in section 16 of the Marriage Bill. Now, we cannot have this global kind of legislation because the Department of Foreign Affairs is such a big place and so important that they can do what they bloody well like and the rest of us are to say nothing. We are not fit. I remember when the Minister would not answer me when I asked a most straightforward question about the extent to which the Germans had broken our bilateral trade agreement. I remember when it was rigged around the bloody House, "goodo," that these questions would not be answered on the grounds, from the Ceann Comhairle, and he had it all prepared when I raised it with him—

It was the Ceann Comhairle who stopped the Deputy, not me.

No. Let me say what I have to say first. Let me make my point first. The Minister does not know what I am going to say so let him wait until I finish. It was fixed up. Eventually I went into the public office and said: "Look, do you know what I want to ask? You fix the questions." And they fixed the questions. But were they allowed then? They were not and I will tell you why: it was because the Minister's dirty Department was interfering with the workings of this House in the filthiest fashion.

That is a most extraordinary suggestion.

The Deputy knows he should not cast reflections like that.

It is a reflection on the Ceann Comhairle to infer that people could successfully interfere with questions.

I know what happened and, with respect, it is a reflection on the way the business of this House is conducted. And I stand over it.

Would Deputy O'Donovan come back to the amendment before the House?

I certainly will. I have made my point. It is quite clear what I was talking about and the Minister knows it quite as well as I do. The Minister talks about implied repeal. Did Deputy de Valera say he does now know what I am talking about? Did he? I will tell Deputy de Valera what I am talking about if he wants to know. It is quite a simple thing. I asked a simple question in the House as to whether——

The Deputy must stay with the amendment.

If someone interrupts I think I am entitled——

I did not interrupt the Deputy.

——to answer him.

Deputy O'Donovan, on the amendment.

Was Deputy de Valera thinking out loud? Is this his trouble? He cannot think for himself. The Minister said there is a principle of implied repeal. I have never heard of this bloody principle in all my life and I have had as much to do with legislation as the Minister. I have had a damn sight more to do with legislation——

There you are; people learn something every day.

On the contrary. I am not prepared to swallow rubbish, not even from "Mr. Europe" himself. I am not built that way. I am not prepared to swallow rubbish from anybody.

I am sure that it is a principle in our law.

The Minister is assured it by his men in the Department of Foreign Affairs. Is that it?

Very sound lawyers.

I did not know the Minister had any lawyers in Foreign Affairs. All I can say is you have a great many lazy people in Foreign Affairs.

Deputy O'Donovan must not cast reflections on civil servants.

I have every right to say this is one of the laziest Bills I have ever seen in this House, one of the laziest that ever came before the House.

The Deputy will please stay with the amendment before the House.

I never saw a lazier Bill in all my life and I have every right to say this.

The Deputy on the amendment.

Look, this is the end of the hunt in relation to this Bill and I have not taken up much time in the House, but other people have talked for 12 hours.

We are on the Committee Stage, Deputy.

All right. On the Final Stage I will have a few words to say about it and I will say them with emphasis. I am now dealing with the Minister's reply. He said: "We have published a list." What was in this list? What was in this list was just the minimum of words. There was no worthwhile information at all, but there were 1,300 amendments of law, or something like that, amendments of directives, or whatever they are, or Acts. There were 1,300 of them and the Minister said: "We have published a list." What use is this list to anybody? Here it is. It is a massive document. This is the list in my hand.

(Dublin Central): Read it out.

I will read out just one: Regulation 2504/71 of 22nd November amending regulation No. 24 and regulation EEC No. 816/70 relating to common organisation of the markets in wine products. How much information does that give us?

None. The Deputy is on the wrong list.

That is the wine list.

These are our Acts which are affected. It is all very well to be smart about this kind of thing.

What the Deputy read out was some of the secondary legislation of the Community and what we are talking about is our Acts affected by secondary legislation. What the Deputy should read out is our Acts.

I know, but why should they be affected by secondary legislation. Under what obligation am I to read out our Acts?

None whatever. I can read out a secondary piece of legislation and ask what is the meaning of this legislation in relation to our Acts. I will go back to it again. Here it is. They are here by the thousand. What does it mean—relating to the common organisation of the market in wine products? I do not know how this affects our legislation and I suspect nobody else does either. It is all right to provide a list of this kind to the House, but what value is it to the Members of the House? What value is it in helping them to understand what we are legislating on? I do not think it is of any value whatever. The Minister says: "We have published a list." This is the kind of list he has published, himself and his Department— a kind of shorthand.

An incomplete index, on their own admission.

It is a guideline.

I am not aware of any Parliament which legislates on the basis of an index. I have read Acts of different Parliaments and I am not aware of any Parliament that legislates on the basis of an index. I am taking Deputy de Valera as being correct. I hope he is.

It is an explanatory memorandum.

Explanatory? What does it explain?

It explains nothing. It does not explain the Bill. It says nothing whatever about the Acts. All it does is give us a list in shorthand. Of what? Of what the Community has already——

The list is appended to the memorandum.

The memorandum is just a few generalisations and the list goes on for page after page, hundreds and hundreds of items, and I do not believe that any one of them is explained properly. I do not approve of this method of legislating. I should like to know does Deputy de Valera approve of it either. Does Deputy de Valera approve of this kind of thing? Does he stand over what he said yesterday—that we are giving away none of our sovereignty in this whole situation?

Fundamentally we are not.

The Deputy will remember what I said when he made that remark yesterday. We will leave it at that. The Minister then said in his reply that the lawyers are put on their track. What use is that to the ordinary citizens, that the lawyers are put on their track? As Deputy Ryan said, it will create a bonanza for the lawyers. He is right, of course. This section will create a superbonanza for the lawyers.

Finally, the Minister said that, if we did it in the same way as the British Parliament had done it, it would lead to confusion. This is what the Minister said as I took it down. I hope I did not misinterpret it. In fact, if we approached this matter as the British did it might have created a lot more work, but a custom has gradually grown into our legislation of doing things in a slick manner and you provide that the Minister may by order do this, that and the other thing. There is no detail of what he may do. It amounts to saying that the Minister may do anything he likes to ensure that an Act is operated as he wants to operate it. I am talking of ordinary legislation. This has led gradually to this situation where we are presented, in probably the most important piece of legislation we ever had in this House since the legislation bringing the treaty between Great Britain and Ireland into operation, with generalised statements which, as law, are worthless. No lawyer will accept them. Therefore, I think Deputy Ryan is quite right to put down this amendment.

The Deputy made some wild statements which I suppose can happen——

They were not wild at all.

——about the Department of Foreign Affairs. He called it a dirty Department and suggested it engaged in filthy activities. I know he probably allows himself a certain licence but anything the Department does is my responsibility. I think the country is well served by the people in the Department. Under the method we have of running this country the civil servants do not defend themselves and for that reason they attract attack.

With respect, they are jolly good at defending themselves.

Deputy O'Donovan must allow the Minister to make a statement.

The Deputy is entitled to say anything he likes about me. I am responsible for the behaviour of that Department and for the standards in it and I repeat that it is because they do not defend themselves—and that is our system—that they are subject to these attacks. I should far prefer the Deputy to say the same thing about me.

Come off it.

It would be fairer.

I shall say it about you.

That would be much fairer.

But I shall allow Deputy Ryan to talk first.

Are we concluding on this tonight?

I would hope so. My contribution, I trust, will be brief and to the point. The blame here lies on the Minister and on the Government fairly and squarely. It is up to them to get from the civil servants the work they require and by now they should have required a detailed, comprehensive, exhaustive list of our own legislation which is being amended by the obligations of the European Communities. That is the absolute truth. I think the reality is that the Minister for Foreign Affairs, off to Brussels, could not care less what is left behind. The Government could not care less. Fianna Fáil have never shown much respect for legal obligations. It has often been said that there are Members of the Opposition here who have made immense profits out of legal cases. Shame on the Government that have made this possible. It was not possible when Governments were concerned about legal obligations. Now they are not. I believe profit will be made by the legal profession because of the mess and uncertainly left behind but losses will be caused to insurance companies which insure lawyers against what is called negligence, that is, failure to give clients correct advice.

I do not believe there is in Dublin today a lawyer who could give to his client correct advice on what Ireland's domestic law will be from 1st January 1973. There is no one library in Dublin—in fact, not all the libraries in Dublin—which can provide the total law of the European Community. The Incorporated Law Society have pointed out to the Government that the initial cost of providing in Dublin one reference library for the European Community would be £13,000 and that the cost of providing the annual increase in documentation would be £1,800. The legal profession have not at present available the income to provide for that. They have asked the Government to provide that library for the public. I quote from the annual report of the Incorporated Law Society published yesterday. They have made urgent representations to the Department of Justice and the Attorney General's Department that the Government should publish a guide to legislation which will become spent or obsolete following accession to the European Community because they regard that as the minimum essential to giving clients adequate legal advice.

They have not got this from the Government. It is not in the Bill and is nowhere available. It is a thorough and complete disgrace. Deputy Dr. O'Donovan is perfectly correct in saying that yesterday we had one process of legislation which spelled out in detail down to the hours at which you could get married, precisely the way the marriage laws were being amended. Here, according to the Government's own memorandum, we have legislation extending from agricultural produce, cereals, to the production of cement, to industrial relations, to dangerous substances, to weights and measures, to the enforcement of court orders. Yet there is no indication in this mass of domestic legislation of the extent of repeal, and that is an essential guide to the law.

I am appalled that the Government should do this. I suppose we cannot do anything at this hour of the day. Members have been treating contributions on this section with far too much levity, but be sure that you are putting the country and the whole legal system into a thorough and complete mess. All we can do at this stage is to protest and to vote emphatically against it. That is why we put down this amendment and why we insist the amendment should be carried to oblige the Government to set out in the Schedule to this Act an adequate guide to what is being repealed. It is not sufficient to say, as the Minister said, that there is a doctrine of implied repeal. There is, but that is no use to anybody who wants to confirm with the law. There is no reference available to them to show such people what the law is.

May I just say that we have been here from 10.30 this morning until almost 10.30 tonight. As the Minister is aware—I cannot repeat this often enough—I was opposed to EEC entry; I think it was a mistake, but the country decided in its favour. None of us will get any thanks if we impede the passing of this measure. It appears that the Government have made a bad mistake; they have not produced the necessary documentation, but there is nothing we can do here tonight if we talk until 12 o'clock. I think we should have this matter decided now if we are serious about it, and I suggest we do that. I am well aware that there are people here who have very valid points to make and they are entitled to make those points, but this will not alter the fact that the legislation must go through. Unless we are prepared to spend another day on it I suggest we should bring it to a close now.

With due respect to my senior colleague in the Labour Party, the Minister made some dirty references to me in his reply. He spoke about "wild remarks". I do not make wild statements in this House. It is the Minister who, when I asked reasonable questions in this House, said it was argument. I was treated with all kinds of nonsense and it was the Minister who was responsible for that. The Minister can interpret the word "Minister" any way he likes.

Coming back to the amendment, we have mentioned in the explanatory memorandum under "community provisions affecting Acts" the Companies Act, 1963, with a note "Provisions regarding the disclosure of accounts, etc. in certain cases." What does this mean? I do not know. Neither, I suspect, does the Minister. The Minister might explain that, for example. To take another, The Motor Vehicles (Registration of Importers) Act, 1968. The explanation is "The requirement in the Accession Treaty that provision be made for the introduction of a global quota in respect of vehicles other than those covered by the existing scheme." What does that mean? Has it any meaning? The fact is that it has no meaning. Taken by itself it has no meaning whatever. It is all very fine for the Minister to suggest that I cannot say things about Government Departments. I can and will say things about Government Departments any time I like. I want to put my interpretation of this rule about not mentioning the Civil Service. It refers to not mentioning individual civil servants. Everybody has the right to attack Government Departments, if they feel like it, in this House, and I stand over that. The Leas-Cheann Comhairle may rule me out of order if he likes but he is quite wrong in doing that. Every Member of this House has the right to say that a Government Department is doing wrong. When I say the Minister's civil servants are doing it, the Minister knows what the rules of debate are, that we are supposed to refer to the Minister. What is the difference? We all know the meaning of it. We are not idiots.

Will the Deputy come to the amendment?

Having made the point. I will come back. Let me say that I have not delayed the House about this Bill. There will be no Division tonight because I will talk until 10.30 about this amendment.

(Interruptions.)

Deputy O'Donovan on the amendment.

I would not have done it but for the Minister's dirty remarks about me. If the Minister will withdraw his reference to my "wild remarks", I will allow him the Bill.

A nice approach to public business, is it not?

It is the right approach.

The Deputy is going to delay the House.

All dirty remarks are now withdrawn.

The Minister has not withdrawn his dirty remarks.

Deputy O'Donovan on the amendment.

Will the Minister withdraw his remarks that I made wild statements? I made no wild statements. If the Minister says they are wild let him prove they are wild. He did not prove any one of them wild. He makes global statements, as this blooming Bill makes the most global provisions ever put into any Act—next to the one already passed in relation to the Community. It is all very fine to talk but if we are here as legislators we should legislate properly and we should not go in for this kind of thing of giving a clean state to the Minister and allowing the to do what he likes and allowing the Communities to do anything they like to us. This is not done. This was not done across the water. The Minister can say what he likes about my remarks but unless he withdraws his statement that I made wild remarks he is not going to get this Stage of the Bill tonight. He has a few minutes still to withdraw the remark but if he is not going to withdraw it I will not withdraw what I am saying. This will not end tonight.

If Deputy O'Donovan would allow me for a minute, could both the comment Deputy O'Donovan made about the officials and what the Minister said be taken as not having been said and let us get on with the job?

I will not agree.

I appeal to these men to get on with the business of the House.

I am getting on with the business of the House. We had statements repeated over and over again.

Deputy O'Donovan on the amendment.

I will come back to the amendment straightaway. The amendment is intended to provide that there are some powers left to this House to deal with matters which are essentially the prerogative of this House. Of course, Deputy de Valera, having said yesterday that we gave away none of our sovereignty, is dead keen that we proceed to give away more of it today. Let me put it this way—I could not care tuppence whether we get through this Stage of the Bill tonight or not because there will be other Stages and there will be plenty of opportunity for me to talk on them but I will be back on the Minister's reference to my wild remarks and I will deal with the Minister's wild remarks as I have already dealt with them.

Let me repeat one of them: "There is a principle of implied repeal". This is a principle that I never heard of before and neither did anybody else. There is no such principle and, I do not care tuppence from whom he got that advice, it is wrong. It is completely and absolutely wrong. The Minister can come into the House and make this kind of statement if he likes but the House does not have to accept it. "There is a principle of implied repeal." Yesterday things were spelled out again and again and again on the Marriages Bill, and repeated over and over again—the same old form of words, for a whole page, and then the Minister comes in today, on a much more important Bill, and says there is a principle of implied repeal.

We have had altogether too much of this business of a gradual attrition of the powers of Parliament here and the more we give way the more it continues and the worse it gets. I have given the Minister an opportunity to withdraw his nasty remark about me. If he will not withdraw it I shall talk this out tonight. He can withdraw the remark or he can come in again tomorrow morning. He can have it whichever way he likes.

I have every intention of being in Dáil Éirean at 10.30 tomorrow.

The Minister is talking about "ridiculous" and "stupid".

We can be here at 10.30 a.m.

I can be here too. I do not see any problem in it. I am glad to see the Minister picking up his papers. That is a sign. I have said, and I am entitled to say it, that if the Minister talks about "wild remarks" when in fact what I was saying was the literal truth, the Minister will have to put up with a great deal more of this from now on. He had to put up with some of it today. He did not get any of it from me today but he will have a lot more of it before this Bill goes through the House. I am not going to put up with this from anybody.

(Interruptions.)

Will Deputy O'Donovan get back to the amendment, please?

I am getting considerable help from the Fianna Fáil Deputies on my right.

(Interruptions.)

I will speak for myself. I am an individual Member of the House. I move to report progress.

Progress reported; Committee to sit again.
The Dáil adjourned at 10.30 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 9th November, 1972.
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