The first item on the agenda is the election of a chairperson for which I will now seek nominations.
Election of Chairman.
Clerk to the Committee
I nominate Deputy Michael Woods.
I second that nomination.
I wish to nominate Deputy Michael D. Higgins.
I second that nomination.
Clerk to the Committee
As we have more than one nomination, I am required to put the nominations to the committee in the order in which they were received, until a chairperson is elected.
Question, "That Deputy Woods be elected chairperson of the Joint Committee", put and agreed to.
DEPUTY MICHAEL WOODS took the Chair.
I express my appreciation to the members of the committee for having appointed me as their Chairperson. I am particularly honoured to have been selected on this occasion. I also welcome the members of the committee to their first meeting. I recognise their experience and involvement in European and Foreign Affairs matters. In that respect, I recognise the fact that Deputy Mitchell, who has already been elected as Chairman of the Joint Committee on European Affairs, is also a member of this committee. I look forward to working with all of you in a genuine spirit of partnership and co-operation. I am confident we will bring to bear our combined skills and enthusiasm on the work of the committee and discharge its functions effectively.
We will move to the next item on the agenda.
I thank Senator Norris and Deputy Gregory for having proposed and seconded me for the position of chairperson. I wish Deputy Woods well in chairing the committee. The committee has been in existence since 1993 and was originally proposed by others, including myself, as far back as 1981. We had an ad hoc Committee on Foreign Affairs which provided the first opportunity for NGOs to meet and discuss relevant issues. Senator Norris was among others who served with me on that committee.
One of the reasons my name was put forward for the position of chairperson was to advance the principle of the autonomy of this committee from the Department of Foreign Affairs. The committee is at its best when it operates in response to issues of public interest that arise in the Oireachtas. It is at its worst when it simply accepts drafts read out by the chairperson at the beginning or end of a meeting. In the latter case, it is simply not engaging vigorously in issues of public interest. Members of the committee are the best judges of the relative importance of the issues that come before them and that is reflected well in the sub-committees that deal, for example, with human rights and development.
I am stating this now to save time later because the absence of critical distance is reflected in the summary of the committee's work last year where an excessive emphasis was placed on what one might call the usefulness of the committee for economic purposes. In the previous draft work programme, emphasis was placed on the usefulness of Irish foreign policy for advancing economic interests. Of course, that should not be neglected but the question is whether such interests should have such a hegemonic presence in our work programme as to drive out other issues which may be deemed unacceptable. These are matters to which I can return.
I am grateful to those who proposed and seconded my nomination because I wanted to make the point of principle that parliamentary committees are at their strongest when chaired by a member of the Opposition. It is essential that from the beginning of its work the committee must maintain its autonomy from the relevant Department of State that has a duty of administration. It was always upsetting to have to tell people who worked in Iveagh House that while we in parliament made policy they had to implement it, and we did not drift along after them like ghosts. That it why it was a privilege for me to have been nominated for the position of chairperson of the committee, and I am grateful to those who nominated and seconded me.
I appreciate the points the Deputy has made. I would also like to stress the independence of the committee from the Executive - they are two separate arms. The Executive has a function and the Minister is responsible for delivering the Government's role in that. The committee, however, is independent, comprising Government and Opposition members, and will examine impartially the issues it considers to be important, as well as matters the Minister may refer to us from time to time. We will try to realise Deputy Higgins's dream and bring it to fruition during the committee's period of operation. That is why I emphasised at the outset the previous experience, involvement and knowledge of Government and Opposition members of the committee. Consequently, I hope that the proposals with which we will come forward will be both independent and helpful nationally.
I thank the Clerk and the committee's adviser for putting together a draft work programme on which we can build. We can have a discussion on that this afternoon and we will also have an opportunity for members to express their views between this and the next meeting. We will try to finalise it later. I thank them for putting that programme together and for covering most of the general areas involved. We will have an opportunity to discuss the draft work programme later.
As the person who proposed the nomination of Deputy Higgins for the position of chairperson, I take this opportunity to congratulate you, Chairman. It was not done in a partisan fashion. I also wish to underline the fact that I am one of the few people who has been a member of this committee since it was conceived. I can bear witness to the fact that we have operated consistently on a non-partisan basis. I am heartened by your words, Sir, and I am sure the committee will continue to operate on that basis, as well as being independent of Iveagh House.