Dominic Hannigan (Meath East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Dr. Barrett for those remarks. I appreciate the work he has done in putting together this report over the last number of years. It is a comprehensive document and it will certainly be a very useful guide for members, not just now but in the future, regarding how this committee came about, how European Union committees developed over the years, their roles and responsibilities and the opportunities we have as members of the committee to shape and influence future debates. I thank him for the time and effort he put into this document.

I will take up a few questions and points Dr. Barrett raised. He mentioned the attendance of Ministers earlier in the year. During the EU Presidency many of our Ministers were overseas and in Brussels, so there was a reduction in the level of ministerial attendance at meetings. That was understandable and they can be forgiven in that instance, but I take his point that generally and in the steady state world there should be greater attendance by Ministers.

Regarding what we can do, one of the suggestions in chapter 5 is that we send our reasoned opinions and political dialogue to Europe regarding forthcoming legislation. That is something we do already and intend to do more. For example, with regard to the social dimension and the paper that was published last week by the Commission outlining a list of indicators we must monitor at European level, that is something this committee will be debating over the coming weeks. We will ask various parties, such as the youth societies in Ireland and unemployed groups, to appear before the committee to give their opinions on how social indicators can work and how we can ensure we include all the relevant measures. We will send a reasoned opinion on that to Brussels.

There is no doubt that there must be better engagement. Dr. Barrett points out in his report that after the National Forum on Europe was shut down, the slack was supposed to be taken up by committees such as this one. Although we do our best to try to generate media interest, to date we have had limited success. We try to highlight that various meetings are taking place and we try to promote our work programme, but it is very difficult to do. Any suggestions Dr. Barrett has as to how we can make the media give greater coverage to the committee's proceedings would be useful, because there is a gap. It is particularly important given the need to ensure there is understanding among the public of what is happening at European level and to ensure democratic legitimacy. The turnout at European elections has been reducing over recent elections, and we are very worried about the potential turnout in next year's election.

Increasing people's understanding of what is happening in Europe is very important, particularly given the fact that things such as the European Semester, the six pack and the two pack are now in play. Most people are of the view that we will wave the troika goodbye in two months and that will be the end of the involvement of Europe in how we set our budgets, but that is not the case. With the six pack, the two pack and the European Semester, from now on our budgets will be monitored extremely closely in line with the governance in place throughout Europe. That is not understood by our people and it is through committees such as this that it is to be hoped we can educate them as to what this new governance will mean.

I thank Dr. Barrett again for his report. I might ask some specific questions later but first I call Senator Colm Burke.