Councillor Paul O'Donoghue:

I thank the Chairman. I shall briefly deal with some of the issues raised.
Senator Noone asked whether we received advance notice of issues which gets to the kernel of the point that we have tried to make. Every October or November the Commission lays out its legislative programme comprising between 40 and 50 directives that it wishes to introduce. It is our considered view that after the announcement each year the forum we have proposed should meet and decide on an Irish strategy and the way that Ireland should deal with the issues as they arise and as the year goes on.
I know that a Deputy suggested that it could be just local and regional strategy. We hope that it would comprise MEPs, the economic and social policy commission, Committee of the Regions or all of us together in order to produce a common strategy. That is important. As someone inquired earlier, in Brussels does one hand know what the other hand is doing? The honest answer is "No". We depend on ad hocmeetings with MEPs to make a decision on positions but that is not the best way going forward. That explains our position on the introduction of the forum.
A question on political groups was raised. We all have a certain loyalty to our political groups and that is the political reality. However, we have adopted the following position. If an issue is of core importance to Ireland then the political group position is secondary to the position of our country. That is the view that we take. We could all work far better together, as a group and collectively, if we met a few times a year to study the programme. That is all we suggest. It is nothing grandiose, nothing that will cost a lot of money or anything of that nature and is not a talking shop. We suggest we meet to discuss and agree a strategy.
Let me give an example of an opinion that I worked on recently which concerned the marine spatial strategy and integrated coastal management. Most politicians in Ireland and other people had not even heard what was meant by the strategy. The Commission proposed that it would be responsible for the planning of our coastal regions in all of Europe. Such a proposal would have huge implications. As we know, some EU directives have not been well received by Ireland. Were it not for the Oireachtas supplying a paper, by way of the warning system, stating where Ireland stood on the subject, I would have no idea where our country was coming from. The issue was of huge importance to local government, national government and regional government and to politicians of all hues, yet no information flowed through except for the warning mechanism.