Mr. Phil Hogan:

That is what the Senator said. I do not want to adjudicate on the supremacy of the UK Parliament because it is subject to court proceedings and I do not know what will be the outcome of the case. I will defer to Senator Paul Coghlan's superior knowledge on these matters in respect of the interaction he might have with the British-Irish Interparliamentary Body. These are very important legal proceedings and have been contested by the UK Government. There is a tension between the UK Parliament and the UK Government about these issues, which will be resolved by the courts.

There are other trade agreements. Many members have mentioned this. If one were to write an agreement to satisfy the political philosophy of Deputy Boyd Barrett, the best one would be that with Canada. Human rights, environmental issues and labour and food standards are very important for people and one could not write a better deal than the CETA agreement between the EU and Canada. We have reached a stage where the Belgian Government is the only one that is not in agreement because of the regional governments' influence over the federal Government's decision-making in the institutional and constitutional arrangements in that country. It is, however, an excellent deal. The negotiations with the US in respect of TTIP are paused and will resume in the future depending on the attitude of the new US President. That is the latest state of play and I have nothing further to report on the proposed arrangement. We have opened up an enormous number of negotiations for free trade agreements and to upgrade some involving Mexico, the Philippines and Indonesia. Next year, we will look at opportunities regarding New Zealand and Australia. We attended meetings yesterday with the Chinese Government relating to an investment deal between the EU and China. A deal with Japan may be concluded by March 2017. Much work is ongoing on the trade side. In respect of whether member states want a trade deal, it is a question of whether it is an EU competence or a mixed deal between the EU and the member states. Members can see the difficulty we have in getting approval for even the one that is probably the best deal we ever did, which is the one between the EU and Canada.

The EU is its member states. People often forget that. It is not the European Commission. It is the member states and the European Parliament. This is where I agree completely with Senator Craughwell who said that we have to take responsibility for decisions. If one is fed a diet of statements that Europe is a problem and Europe is bad over a 30-year period, as the UK citizens were, one would not expect to get a positive result in a referendum when the proposal was put. The same is happening in a number of member states. Prime ministers and governments across the EU have to make up their minds about whether or not they are going to be part of the project, and there are very good reasons why they should be, working collectively to deal with common issues. They have to take responsibility for decisions they make that might be good for the country on some days while on other days, there might be difficulties in respect of citizens' engagement with a decision. Warts and all, we must look at an overall strategy for these issues. I encourage all member states to think long and hard about the collective responsibility required to deal with many difficult issues in the EU. They are economic, social, environmental, migration and foreign policy issues.

A number of members asked about the possibility of an Irish person being on the negotiating team. There will be no one from any member state on the negotiating team. The chief negotiator just happens to be from France. A task force will be established as an advisory group and there will be interaction between it and the team on a regular basis. Ireland will be represented on the group. That was always going to be the case. As to the question of Ireland having someone on the team due to Ireland's importance vis-à-visthe UK, that will not be the case. I will describe the process. The European Council, of which the Taoiseach is a member, will make the decision about the negotiators' mandate. The Commission will do the work and the European Council will make the final decision. We are an executive body that is doing the work for our politicians. The European Parliament must decide as well. As such, we must have a balanced agreement.

There is a strong view among the European institutions as well as the political institutions that will make these decisions that the four freedoms should be protected, those being, freedom of movement of people, good, services and capital. This is the starting point. It is why the European project exists. The Single Market and the single mechanism - the European Union - that we use to deal with these movements comprise the reason for the project and for member states pooling some of their sovereignty with a view to taking a collegiate and common approach to many of our issues.

Deputy Haughey and others asked whether the Commission and other institutions had an appreciation of the Irish island approach and issues arising from our history, the Good Friday Agreement and the need to protect the gains that had been made through peace and reconciliation. They have. At the highest level, the European Commission is fully informed and satisfied with the situation in Ireland, namely, that there will be a unique set of circumstances on the island. There are unique sets of circumstances on the island of Cyprus and in Spain in terms of Gibraltar. I mention these as examples of unique situations that need to be resolved. The Irish Government, which met Mr. Barnier last week, has made its views known. They are also being made known at diplomatic and ministerial levels. The special position of Northern Ireland and the North-South and Ireland-UK relationships have been, and will continue to be, well explained.

Many members stated that we should be making more progress on migration. I agree. The European Commission tabled many proposals in the past two years. A proper migration policy was one of the Juncker priorities. Member states did not agree. The Commission's proposals are being rejected by member states. The EU did not erect a wire fence anywhere, which Deputy Durkan alluded to and which is a sad reflection on the way the EU is in the collective sense. Several member states made that decision, not the Commission. It is all very well to say that Brussels did this and Brussels did that, but we have made substantial proposals to deal with the migration crisis. We did a deal with Turkey to provide the best facilities that we could to address a humanitarian problem in that country arising from the displacement of people following the war in Syria. We have had to do the same in Italy, Greece, Lebanon and Jordan. We are major financiers of these projects. We would prefer it if we did not have to make these moves and implement these policies, which are a significant cost to the European taxpayer, but these are the circumstances. Families and individuals in war-torn regions are being displaced.

Given our history, we should know better than most the importance of helping people. Over the years, we have been to the fore in providing humanitarian assistance through our missionaries and through our own emigrants to other shores in times of difficulty. Through NGOs and overseas development aid, Ireland and other countries are doing a considerable amount of good work. The European Commission has made available a significant amount of financial resources to deal with this difficult issue, which will only be resolved at a political level. We are waiting for all sides to come to the table for meaningful discussions. The committee knows how difficult it is just to keep the negotiations going. The European Council is discussing these issues in terms of Russia, Ukraine, trade, Syria, etc. It will be interesting to see the outcome.

A number of committee members mentioned taxation issues in the context of the recent high-profile Apple case. There is nothing new in the way that the Commission conducted its investigation into the tax rulings. The decision has nothing to do with tax rates or tax law in Ireland, rather Commissioner Vestager's decision has to do with the boundaries of aggressive tax planning being pushed out and constituting state aid. This is the view of the Commission. It resulted from the information supplied by Apple and the 2015 hearings in the US. In our view, the company's effective tax rate varied from 1% to 0.005% of its profits. It should not be surprised that this became an issue. Ireland has the benefit of a 12.5% corporate tax rate. The 1991 and 2007 tax rulings should have alerted authorities everywhere that this was an issue if they were being pursued to the extent of being aggressive tax planning. This is not about interfering with a member state's tax rates, rather it is about how taxation was used for the purpose of constituting state aid where the treatment of the company in question and the rules of engagement concerning its tax planning were not available in a significant way to all other companies in Ireland. The Commission has asked Ireland to collect the money because the head office was deemed to be in Ireland. That head office is acknowledged by Apple to have been in Ireland.

Issues regarding the common consolidated corporate tax base, CCCTB, will be discussed by the Commission next week. They do not concern tax rates, rather they concern establishing a CCCTB and rules around how tax is calculated in member states. The CCCTB has been in the pipeline for the past ten years and has been discussed many times. Taxation policy is not legislatively a part of the EU per se, but part of what we are considering are the rules on how one calculates tax. We are engaging with governments to ensure that there is a constructive realisation, based on a number of tax rulings in many member states in recent years, that we have to find a way to work together to simplify the rules in the Common Market. The Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, made a start on this in 2013. With the help of the OECD, he was able to develop a scheme around base erosion and profit shifting, BEPS, solutions and the knowledge box. I was a member of the Cabinet when those matters were discussed in 2013. Ireland is ahead in reforming its taxation laws in order to comply with some of the issues that are now on the agenda.

Many members expressed their concerns about the rise of populism in the EU. I share their concerns. Europe has come through a difficult time in terms of fiscal consolidation arising from the financial crisis. Many simplistic solutions were proposed, but we need a banking system that works and is funded. Whatever one's views are on how policy was applied and what instruments were used at European level, Ireland and other countries have come through those difficulties. I was in Greece recently. Its leader once had a different view of the world than he does today about the solutions to the problems in the financial affairs of the EU.

He is implementing with gusto some of the reforms he opposed three years ago. There is a political party in Spain which had solutions similar to Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett's. It lost ground in the recent elections in Spain. Its vote decreased significantly. There is a gradual realisation that it is not easy to fix all these fiscal, financial and economic problems. The public is becoming aware that we need stability to have a growing economy. We need stability for investment and certainty. I welcome that governments realise they need to pay their way and that the gap between income and expenditure must be bridged to ensure we have a competitive European economy and a sound and stable financial system.

I could go on for a considerable time answering questions. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett raised the water charges issue. Mr. Brian Hayes, MEP, put a question to the Commissioner for the Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Mr. Karmenu Vella, who is the relevant and appropriate Commissioner. He received the following reply from the Commissioner:

The Commission was informed by the Irish Authorities of the temporary suspension of water charges, pending a review by an Expert Water Commission. The Commission reiterated to the Irish authorities its view on the requirements of the Water Framework Directive (WFD)(1) and the need for Ireland to establish a robust funding system that secures the long-term quality of water and water services, especially as investment in water is clearly acknowledged as necessary by the Irish authorities themselves (2).

It is now for the Expert Water Commission to get on with its task of assessing the funding of domestic public water services in Ireland and to make recommendations to the Irish Parliament on water pricing policy which comply with WFD requirements and allow Ireland to be able to finance the necessary improvements in water quality and infrastructure.

I have nothing further to add.