Professor Gavin Barrett:

It is useful. Peer review and peer learning are vitally important. COSAC's future potential is somewhat limited. It could do more in some areas - for example, a more significant role in the European early warning system would be very welcome. However, that is not today’s topic.

Deputy Crowe asked if I could tell him about country-specific recommendations. He is no longer in the room. This is provided for in EU Regulation No. 473/2013. No procedure is set out. The Commission is entitled, under Article 7, to adopt an opinion on draft budgetary plans and can then adopt an opinion on revised draft budgetary plans. Its opinion is made public and given to the Eurogroup, namely, the finance ministers of the 19 eurozone countries. Thereafter, at the request of the parliament of the member state concerned or the European Parliament, the Commission shall present its opinion to the parliament making the request. This seems to indicate that, no matter where in the parliament the request comes from, it can be accommodated. Either the finance committee or the European Union affairs committee could facilitate it. Article 11(2) sets out a similar procedure in the case of a risk of non-compliance with a deadline to correct an excessive deficit. The Commission makes recommendations, presents them to the economic and financial committee and, at the request of the member state's parliament, can be brought in to explain its position. This is a very important power that national parliaments have and it is up to them to decide how to use it. The regulations are no more prescriptive than saying that national parliaments have these powers.

Deputy Dooley asked how we can make issues more relevant and pointed out that if something is not being discussed in the Oireachtas bar, it is difficult to interest the media in it. It is a fair point which needs to be considered. A centrally important question is how the Oireachtas relates to the European semester process. In due course, with the model arrangements, we will receive some advice from Europe. We must pay attention to timelines. The European semester process is bounded by short timelines. Once one gets hold of national reform programmes, country-specific recommendations, etc., committees should get their responses in on time. The context of mainstreaming must be borne in mind. Which committee should deal with the European semester process? It seems it will be the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform. Would the committee need to farm out particular aspects of the issues to other committees, and how would this be accommodated?

An issue that has occurred to me is that there is, on the one hand, the Department of Finance, with all of its experts, economists and resources, and on the other hand, the Oireachtas committees, with a comparative dearth of resources to compete. How can national parliaments cope with this? This overlaps with what we were saying. Perhaps having hearings and inviting in members of civil society so they can express their views on country-specific recommendations and national reform programmes in particular might be a way of compensating for the inequality of arms between the Executive and national parliaments and perform a useful role that will matter to people. The budgetary decisions matter to people, and various interest groups would be interested in coming here and making their voices heard regarding the European semester process.

Deputy Eric Byrne correctly raised the issue that on the one hand, we have all these crises fuelled to a certain extent by nationalism. In addition to the ones he mentioned in Catalonia, there are matters like Brexit, the Greek issue and the immigration crisis. At the same time, we have this report proposing further integration, so how does one balance the two of those? That dilemma is very much reflected in this particular document. Systemically what is needed is relatively clear but, on the other hand, as regards making that acceptable to the member states, it is fairly clear that we need to put much of this into the treaties. Matters like the Euro Plus pact do not belong in soft law but in the actual intergovernmental treaties. Getting member states to accept that, however, is a different thing. The failure to specify deadlines, the vagueness which Mr. Seamus Coffey referred to earlier on in relation to this whole document, very much reflect the difficulty that the Commission and the EU as a whole face in this regard.

I suppose there is nothing more to be said about it. It is a difficult dilemma and, like the Deputy, I believe very much in the process of European integration. All they can do is to continue along the gradualist route they have adopted and, hopefully, get there in the end.

As regards how to keep citizens engaged and how a national parliament should structure itself, various approaches are now possible. One can have document-based scrutiny, get Ministers in and engage in political dialogue under the Barroso initiative. There is the subsidiarity early-warning mechanism and contributing to the debates in a House of Lords style, coming up with serious heavy-duty reports on various areas of EU integration. There is, therefore, a variety of ways in which national parliaments can engage in the process. To a certain extent, a choice has to be made. One cannot be good at everything and one cannot do all of these activities at the end of the day.

For instance, if one looks at the latest reports on political dialogue, one will notice that two committees, the Danish committee and the one in the Finnish Eduskunta, are commonly reputed to be the best and strongest committees on EU affairs. They have hardly produced any reports at all concerning the political dialogue, however, which means not that they are unable to do so - because they are quite obviously able to do it - but that they have chosen to funnel their energies in a different direction. They are funnelling their efforts in the direction of the mandating system they have in those countries - in other words, keeping control on Danish Ministers negotiating issues.

In recent years, since the Treaty of Lisbon came into force, a whole panoply of options has opened up for national parliaments. Like every other EU parliament, the Oireachtas has choices to make as to how it wants to engage. To my mind, however, engaging itself in the European semester would be a very good way of expending its energies. That is something that matters to people and is vitally important to them. It could be a way of bridging the gap between what is going on in this room and what is going on out there on the street.