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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 27 Mar 1984

Vol. 349 No. 3

European Assembly Elections Bill, 1984: Committee and Final Stages.

Section I agreed to.
SECTION 2.

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 3, line 4, to delete all words after "regarded," to the end of the section, and substitute:

"(a) a member of Dáil Éireann, or

(b) holds the office of Chairman or Deputy Chairman of Seanad Éireann, shall on such election, or, in case he is to be so regarded, on the day on which he commences to be so regarded, cease to hold that office.

(3) If while he is a representative in the Assembly a person—

(a) becomes subject to any of the disqualifications applicable to membership of Dáil Éireann, or

(b) becomes a member of Dáil Éireann, or

(c) becomes the holder of any office mentioned in subsections (1) or (2) of this section,

he shall thereupon cease to be a representative in the Assembly.'.".

This section deals with the dual mandate and our amendment proposes to amend it. In his reply, the Minister said that The Workers' Party, or whatever party oppose the dual mandate, were trying to draw some advantage from that. I have already dealt with our attitude to the dual mandate on the basis that, one MEP who is active in the European Parliament is opposed to the dual mandate and has said it is impossible to carry out the duties of the European Parliament and those of Dáil Éireann.

The debate today relating to the dual mandate also brought out the point made by Deputy Tunney that he felt the abolition of the dual mandate on election could lead to a number of by-elections. That would be true only if the candidates were also Members of the Dáil. If our amendment is passed, parties who have already selected Deputies would have second thoughts. I have no doubt that if there was a system of substitution for the Dáil rather than by-elections there might be a higher turn-over of Deputies. The fact that an individual has to face re-election in a by-election if a Deputy retires or dies is a break from the musical chair approach adopted in the last European Parliament by one party.

In his reaction to criticism of the dual mandate, the Minister implied that to outlaw it would be in conflict with the 1976 European legislation. I have referred to the fact that two members of the EEC, Belgium and Greece, already have outlawed the dual mandate and I have not heard of any effort in the EEC to bring either Belgium or Greece before the European Parliament, the Commission or the European courts because they are in breach of the EEC law or EEC rules and regulations. Any reasonable reading of the quotation that the Minister read that the dual mandate is not incompatible will reveal that it is simply a statement saying that one or the other, either a single or dual mandate process, is compatible with EEC laws. To draw from that an argument that we would be in breach in some way of EEC regulations if we abolish the dual mandate is stretching things a bit far.

I ask the House to accept the amendment which The Workers' Party are putting down. If, as may be the case, the amendment in the Minister's view is not technically as tight as it ought to be, perhaps he will bring in an amendment which would achieve the aim of our amendment. I argue strongly that no Member of this House should adopt the attitude of Deputy Tunney who argues theoretically on the one hand that he disagrees with the dual mandate and on the other hand that he must face political realities. It gives rise to the kind of cynicism that I have already spoken about when public representatives in this House bear theoretical positions and then proceed to act contrary to their expressed opinions and views. I ask the Minister to give sincere consideration to accepting the amendment and to ensure not only that Deputies who would be elected to the European Parliament would automatically resign from the Dáil but if in future MEPs stand for the Dáil and are elected to the Dáil that they in turn resign from the European Parliament. It is the only logical and sane approach to the question of the dual mandate.

The purpose of this amendment would be to forbid the dual mandate for Dáil Members but not for Members of Seanad Éireann. I repeat that article 5 of the European Act of 20 September 1976 concerning direct elections to the Assembly states: "The office of representative in the Assembly shall be compatible with membership of the Parliament of a member state". On a straightforward reading this provision would seem to mean that it would not be open to a member state in its national law either to forbid the dual mandate or to make it obligatory. That is how the provision is interpreted here.

In our view, to forbid the dual mandate would be to conflict with this provision and it would not be open to a member state to do so in its national law. In this country it is regarded as a matter for individual political parties to decide, and I think this is the answer to the Deputy. Political parties if they so decide can do this. I do not intend any slight, but in the election campaign I am sure this will be made quite an issue. Some parts of it that are regarded by Deputy De Rossa as not being fair or honest, putting in what is acceptable to many Irish people, that one should have two jobs, two salaries, two pensions or something like that, will be made an argument during the election and will perhaps bring about a decision for this matter to be changed by individual parties. A transitional period is required for this to be adopted in. Deputy Tunney was right in one respect in saying that the last European election was rather a new experience for us all. A Bill was brought up to run that election. We found some shortcomings in it and it is likely that this is the last time that a European election will be run on that basis. I expect changes will be made in Europe. I expected them to be made for this election but they were not brought about by the Council of Ministers.

I hope that in the next European election we will have a uniform system, that things will be different in that election and that this will be the only occasion on which we must consider the various items not only under this dual mandate but under the whole casual vacancy situation. At any rate, it is the duty of the political parties to make a policy decision in this area and to hold to that. When we in the Labour Party proceeded to hold seats both in Europe and here in the Dáil the Opposition Members made great play about this and were making it a virtue that they should not have dual member candidates. Now they are faced with the situation where an election is coming up and it is in their interest to make sure that they have the best candidates, perhaps better-known candidates who are in the House. It would be interesting to see if these candidates are elected and if so whether they will do what as I understood Deputy Tunney to say, that in the next election he will opt for Europe and he will hold only one mandate. If other candidates of Fianna Fáil, Deputy Fitzsimons, Deputy MacSharry and other Deputies on that side are elected, I hope they will give the assurance too, and then people will know where they stand.

Deputy Tunney also said that there may be another election before the European elections.

We are dealing with realities. Some member states have taken a different view on the dual mandate. I understand that Greece has forbidden the dual mandate in its national law and that a Bill recently approved by Parliament in Belgium proposes to do something similar. It is not known whether European authorities propose to do anything about this apparent conflict between European and national law. I would imagine that we will have to wait for some consideration at Commission or Council of Ministers level. I have given the interpretation that this country makes of the law and I am asking the Dáil to reject this amendment.

I ask the Minister to consider another couple of points. My information is that at the moment something like 11 Deputies in this House have been selected apart from other candidates to contest the 15 seats for this State, there are something like 434 Members in the European Parliament and in the region of 20 of those have the dual mandate at the moment. Does the Minister think that the European Parliament itself has decided by an overwhelming majority that the dual mandate is not on? Does he also agree that the Belgians and the Greeks are just as likely to be right in their interpretation of the 1976 Act of the European Parliament and that to date there has been no challenge to Greece or Belgium on their law outlawing the dual mandate?

Would the Minister not agree that Members, if not from his own party certainly from the Government side, have admitted that it is impossible to do the two jobs effectively? An examination of the number of days on which some Deputies attend who have a dual mandate shows that, in practice, they cannot serve both parliaments. The European Parliament sits for something like 200 days a year and it is physically impossible adequately to serve a Dáil constituency, attending here and participating in the business of legislating and at the same time attend adequately to the business of the European Parliament.

The advice is that it is not open to us to forbid the dual mandate. To do so would be in conflict with the European statute. We must, therefore, reject this amendment. What other countries have done has not proved it to be right as yet. On the basis that we are not open to forbid the dual mandate, irrespective of our views for or against, I have to advise the House to reject this amendment.

Is amendment No. 1 withdrawn?

Question: "That the words proposed to be deleted stand" put and agreed to.
Amendment declared lost.
Section 2 agreed to.
SECTION 3.

I move amendment No. 2:

In page 3, subsection (3) (a) (i), line 33, to delete “two” and substitute “four”.

The purpose of this amendment is to increase the upper limit of the number of replacement candidates who can be nominated on the list of a registered political party from two more than the candidates of a party standing in a constituency to four more than the number of candidates of a party standing in a constituency. During Second Reading debate Deputy Molloy and others on all sides of the House argued for an increase in the number of substitute candidates which a registered political party could place on their replacement candidates list. I have considered these proposals and I feel that such an increase can be accommodated.

Our object in placing a limit on the number of replacement candidates is to prevent a rapid turnover of Irish representation in the European Assembly. Nevertheless, as I have already said, we would all wish to avoid the relevant list becoming exhausted. It is for this reason that I feel some flexibility is possible and I propose increasing the number from two to four in section 3.

Deputy Molloy, other speakers and I made this request to the Minister and I express my appreciation of the Minister's agreeing to the wishes, not alone of Members of this side but also of the Government side. We felt that two were not adequate and not a proper limitation. We shall be supporting this amendment.

Amendment agreed to.
Section 3, as amended, agreed to.
Sections 4 to 6, inclusive, agreed to.
SECTION 7.

I move amendment No. 3:

That the numeral 6 on the penultimate line of section 7 be deleted and replaced by the numeral 7.

This was an uncorrected printer's error in line 53 of page 15 of the text. The line contains a reference to section 6 of the Bill, which reference should have been to section 7. This part of the section refers to Rule 21, as amended by section 6 of the European Assembly Elections Act, 1984. In fact, Rule 21 is amended by section 7. I request the House to accept this correction of the printing error.

Amendment agreed to.
Section 7, as amended, agreed to.
Sections 8 and 9 agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported with amendment, and passed.
Sitting suspended at 6.40 p.m. and resumed at 7 p.m.
Barr
Roinn