I thank the Chairman, members of the committee and attendees. It is a great pleasure to be here to debate the merits of the Lisbon treaty before a public audience. I commend the committee on its decision to hold these regional meetings. Those of us who live in Cork are used to travelling to Dublin for just about everything that requires any kind of decision but it is nice to note that on this occasion the committee is moving around the country to gather the views of the general public.
To be fair to all, I should declare my own position first. I am non-party political but broadly on the left of the spectrum. People who know me will not be surprised to hear that. I have also known Joe Noonan for many years, although I have not had the pleasure of debating with him up to now. Usually, we have shared a broadly similar political perspective. I also know he has a formidable, forensic and subtle legal mind. As a non-lawyer, I will focus on the political and surrounding contexts of the proposed treaty rather than the legal grounds.
My own first foray into European matters, as far back as 36 years ago, was a depthless piece of prose written for a school magazine, entitled "Why Ireland should not join the Common Market". I would not have dreamed of using the biased term, European Economic Community, as I thought that was for the lackeys, Seáníns and the sellers-out of national heritage.
Times change and our thinking changes as well. I still have that article but I do not propose to read from it now. Instead I would like to begin with a quote from the Official Report.
For instance, the question of sovereignty has been mentioned. It surely must be clear to everybody who thinks at all that the right to do as you please is not consistent with any form of real collaboration and that the first thing states must be prepared to do, if they want to enter into a union that will be effective, is to face that question and to realise what indeed they do when they enter into treaties, that absolute sovereignty cannot be retained if there is to be agreement with others. (...) When you enter into a treaty, over the period in which the treaty is effective or lasts, you to that extent bind yourself not to follow your own sweet will but to do the things which you have contracted to do. I have always held that when this question of sovereignty is raised we ought quite flatly to tell everybody that sovereignty in the sense of being allowed to do as you please must go if there is to be any type of union. It is essential that it should go. It is inconsistent with union and with real co-operation and I see nothing derogatory in contracting to limit your sovereignty in the same way that other states are prepared to limit theirs.
The man who uttered these words might be regarded by some, indeed many, as intrinsically unreliable. After all, he was born outside Ireland of mixed parents, only one of whom was Irish. Then again, his name was Éamon de Valera. His sentiments, expressed as far back as 1949, on the occasion of the debate concerning Ireland's proposed entry to the Council of Europe, are in my view an accurate and succinct summary of the whole question of sovereignty, union and democracy. They are a good deal more pertinent today than the views of people like me in the early 1970s, more than 20 years later.
A second point draws on my own experience of working as a relatively junior civil servant in Brussels in the 1980s, starting with my arrival for the very successful Irish Presidency of 1979. Irish European presidencies have, in general, been successful. It concerns a particular feature of Irish political culture, which I had occasion to observe closely on a number of occasions at the time.
Let us recreate the scene. A Council of Ministers is debating a sensitive proposal concerning trade concessions to be made to a third country so that a certain volume of that country's products may be imported into the European Community, as it was then, on special terms. Such a concession, if agreed, would displease a certain Irish lobby of some significance. The Irish Minister of the day, who shall remain nameless, went in and made a gloriously irredentist speech before being shot down in flames by his collective colleagues.
A carefully drafted compromise position, arrived at after much negotiation by a coalition of opposing interests, who wished to actually get the best and fairest possible decision, was quickly adopted. Europe 1, Ireland 0.
One might ask what was wrong with that. In my naïveté, I thought the object of the exercise was to add the weight of our voice and influence to the debate in order to gain an outcome which, as far as possible, reflected the maximum possible recognition of the Irish policy position. In fact, the Minister's eyes were not on his colleagues at all but on the local newspapers back in his corner of Ireland. It was better to die gloriously, fighting for an impossible and never-to-be-attained position of unimpeachable purity and absolutist objectives than to actually get down and dirty in the world of real politics and cut a deal.
This might well be fine for the early virgin martyrs of Catholic theology but in the real world it was not always the best approach. Although I understand the pragmatism which requires any politician to watch his or her back in the local constituency or the local media, I also believe that in the real world politics is about honourable compromises, not arid purity. We can consider the Greens in Government today, and I recognise there may be mixed views about that. I am not looking at Senator Dan Boyle at all.
Things have now changed. We live in a world not of absolute moral or ethical choices between right and wrong but in a place where choices are messy, rarely simple or unequivocal and sometimes involve getting our hands dirty. By way of example, Indymedia, a purveyor of information which is anything but independent, has taken, outrageously, to calling Irish Army deployment in Chad "Ireland's imperial adventure in Chad". "Polish, French, Irish and Italians," we are told, "will risk their lives in central Africa for the sake of Brussels fatcats." This is vicious, inaccurate and slanderous but I do not think it is entirely wrong to say, for instance, that the French role in Africa is devious, dishonest and self-serving. I would still prefer to see Irish troops, serving in an Irish-commanded force — as it is by Lieutenant General Pat Nash — doing something to preserve the lives of refugees in Chad than see us pull up the drawbridge and say it is not our problem or we will not get our hands dirty.
I served for three years in Lebanon. I had no illusions about why UNIFIL was sent there in the first place. Israel had illegally invaded the country, killing thousands and displacing hundreds of thousands, and the USA abjectly approached those friendly states like Ireland which were acceptable to other parts of the world, asking them to send in peacekeepers and save Israel's face and in the process, the so-called peace process. We did go in, and in spite of these motives and the fact that Israel continued to show contempt for the local population and for UNIFIL, on balance we did much good. We were correct to go in and we can be proud of that contribution.
This is the spirit in which I approach the text of the Lisbon treaty — a less than perfect world in which we not only should fight our corner but should also seek to influence the debate with our distinctive viewpoint on European and world affairs. History does not bind us or anyone else. I can think of nothing more heartening, in more than three decades since the death of Franco, than the decision of Prime Minister Zapatero of Spain to appoint what must be the world's first political cabinet with a majority of women. He is the most progressive and refreshing senior politician in Europe today. These are the kind of people we should align ourselves with. Why do we always have to think about defending an insular and arid position instead of seeking to bring our voices to tables such as those?
Part of the problem is that the political establishment in Ireland has never allowed for what might be called a loyal opposition when it comes to European or world affairs. In my own case, I am against the use of Shannon or any other Irish airport for the passage of US troops on their way to commit mayhem in Iraq. I note that Libertas's latest recruit, Mr. McEvaddy, makes much of his money from refuelling US military aircraft. How does that sit with the purer than pure neutralists of the anti-Lisbon lobby?
I am for the regulation of agency workers and against neoliberal economic policies in areas like health and economic development in Europe and the world. I do not always feel voices like mine can find a place on a pro-EU side because the rhetoric is so strident and uncritical. Government efforts to persuade us to vote "Yes" have been insensitive, sometimes dishonest, patronising and verging on the bullying.
Deputy Martin Cullen informed us on Monday on "Questions and Answers" that "The treaty is available in every home in Ireland" and that it was "no more complex than what we do in the Dáil every day of the week." This is patent nonsense. I can only say that apart from being untrue it also invites us to consider just how many Deputies are actually present to do these things in the Dáil, even on one or two days, and certainly not every day.
Most of all, does it not also suggest that the Lisbon treaty is probably not something which can be adjudicated by popular opinion in the first place, but should be considered by appropriately informed Oireachtas bodies, such as this committee, rather than being debated by a public which will ultimately be swayed by unrelated and irrelevant considerations, such as the future of the CAP, the WTO, being "against" the Government or some other windmill against which we want to have a tilt? There is much talk of the defeats of the constitutional treaty proposals in France and the Netherlands, but who can believe that the main reason was not the possible admission of Turkey, rather than the text of the treaty put before the people?
In reality, the treaty is not a big deal and for the most part it lives up to the name of being a reform treaty and not a radical treaty. It simplifies and streamlines decision making through the extension of qualified majority voting while leaving untouched such sensitive areas as military policy and corporate tax. It gives a new voice to national parliaments and encodes human rights through the associated charter. The Council of Ministers is still composed of the representatives of elected national governments. The European Parliament, with an enhanced role, is still directly elected and has an enhanced say in governance. The reform of the Commission will still ensure an equal voice for all member states, large and small, as each will be entitled to appoint a commissioner for ten of every 15 years. Foreign policy will be subject to a greater degree of co-ordination but I think we need this if the tendencies of some of the larger member states are to be channelled and curbed, otherwise we risk returning to the balance of power politics of the 19th century, where the great oppressed the weak. In any event, foreign policy will continue to be defined by the member states, not the EU President or foreign minister.
There is recognition of the key importance of climate change. The new system of qualified majority voting, involving a double majority of at least 15 member states out of 27 and 65% of the total EU population, seems fair. The European Parliament, in which Ireland will have 12 seats, gives a disproportionately high number of seats to small states.
The challenges of the 21st century are large-scale, even global. The response must be on a similar scale. Like anyone else, left-wingers should stay in and fight their corner as there is no alternative. We should stop tilting at windmills. As far as I am concerned, there are no windmills in the Lisbon treaty.
