Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 24 May 2017

Joint Oireachtas Committee on European Union Affairs

Engagement with MEPs

2:00 pm

Photo of Terry LeydenTerry Leyden (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the delegation, particularly the four representatives from my region. The longest serving is Ms Marian Harkin who was in the old Connacht-Ulster constituency, followed by Ms Mairead McGuinness. Mr. Luke "Ming" Flanagan and Mr. Matt Carthy are new Members. The region is very well represented today and I am very impressed. I also welcome Mr. Seán Kelly who represents the South constituency. Also welcome is Ms Martina Anderson who is from Derry and represents the North. This is the first time we have engaged with her.

During the years we have dealt with all sorts of issue such as the Maastricht and Lisbon treaties, but we never thought we would be dealing with Brexit. When I was a Minister of State with responsibility for trade and marketing, we were dealing with the Single European Act. It was a long time ago, but my point is that the British were so engaged and involved that there was no debate and no divisions as such. They have contributed so much to the European Union in the past 30 or 40 years that their exit is quite a blow. We will not go into that matter as the facts are facts and we are where we are.

The European Parliament will play a more important role than ever before as far as Brexit is concerned. Its Members, especially Vice President Mairead McGuinness, are in a particularly good position to link with the other parliaments. Consider the matter of trying to explain our situation, involving trade worth €1.2 billion per week and a 499 km Border with the North. From my experience of attending COSAC meetings which the Chairman has also attended, I believe nobody is particularly concerned about us. When I was in Estonia recently, I was told that there were 70,000 Estonians working in the United Kingdom and that they would not enjoy the free movement arrangement the Irish would have when the negotiations were completed, as if to say, "Don't cry for me Argentina; you are doing okay."

There is a long way to go. As I understand, the European Parliament's decision has to be unanimous, or at least by a majority vote in the European Parliament. We have only so many MEPs. They do all they can, but it is a small number in a big house. Looking down the road, Spain has a veto over Gibraltar. Can someone please explain to me how they could get a veto over Gibraltar when we do not have a veto as far as Northern Ireland is concerned? That surprises me, and perhaps someone could try to extract that somewhere along the line.

Finally, it might be a political point from the witnesses point of view, but we will be losing our MEPs from Northern Ireland. Will the British MEPs be redistributed? In that case, we would end up with only a single extra MEP, as I understand it. We have a very strong case of claiming the Northern jurisdiction, and that three MEPs should be elected from our constituency to represent the people of Northern Ireland in the European Parliament in the future.

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