Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 22 February 2006
150 Mr. Cuffe asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs the agreements reached between Ireland and the United States and only recently revealed to Dáil Éireann; if the trawl of departmental records he subsequently ordered has revealed additional agreements or treaties negotiated in recent years but not placed before the Houses of the Oireachtas; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7108/06]
Amharc ar fhreagraThe two agreements in question are the Agreement between the Government of Ireland and the Government of the United States of America concerning Security Measures for the Protection of Classified Military Information and the Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement between the Department of Defence of Ireland and the Department of Defence of the United States of America. The first agreement is of a generic nature and is designed to permit the sharing of classified material between the US and EU member states. It regulates such matters as the handling of information, and the manner in which such information may be transmitted. The second agreement outlines the procedures that apply to the reciprocal provision of logistical support between the US army and our Defence Forces. It, in particular, enables Irish troops participating in KFOR, the international peacekeeping force in Kosovo, to avail of US facilities in Kosovo, including the use of the US military hospital there. Both agreements were laid before the Dáil on 26 January and both agreements have been published in the Irish Treaty Series. On 13 January, the full texts of both agreements were placed in the Oireachtas Library for the information of Members, and were also made available on my Department's website.
It is the policy of my Department to ensure all international agreements to which the State is a party are laid before the Dáil promptly. The Constitution does not specify a timeframe within which international agreements should be laid before the Dáil though, at the least, it is highly desirable that this should be done as quickly as possible. Until recent years, no specific timetable was in place. However, since 2004, internal targets have been set; currently the target is for all agreements which have entered into force for Ireland in a given calendar year to be laid before the Dáil no later than the end of the following calendar year. Accordingly, all international agreements which entered into force for Ireland in 2005 will be laid before the Dáil no later than the end of 2006. Once an agreement is laid before the Dáil, it is immediately added to the Irish Treaty Series and the text is made freely available from the Department's website. As a result of this, the texts of all international agreements published since 2002 can be downloaded from the Department's website free of charge.
New resources have also been made available to help with the task of identifying international agreements which the State has entered into over the years and which, inadvertently, may not have been laid before the House. In particular, last month a designated treaty officer was assigned to the task of conducting a thorough review of all international agreements entered into by Ireland since 29 December 1937, the date of entry into force of the Constitution. This review will result in a comprehensive account of the State's international treaty obligations. The review is ongoing and any international agreement identified, which has not yet been laid before Dáil Éireann or published in the Irish Treaty Series, will be promptly laid and published, and, if necessary, registered with the United Nations. No such agreement has to date been identified. Ensuring that all agreements are identified will require extensive research, involving the review of a large number of records. As a result, it is estimated that, while the review will be able to make significant progress relatively quickly, it will take some time to complete.
