Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There is an awful lot more we could say on the first topic but we will have opportunities again. Please god, we will not be talking about an even worse situation at that stage. I wish to raise two other issues with the Minister of State. One is the issue touched upon by the Chairman in his opening remarks, the Franco-German group paper discussed at the most recent General Affairs Council, GAC. I submitted a parliamentary question to the Minister for Foreign Affairs about this the day after and he basically said they had not formulated a view. The Chair put it in more striking terms than I would but I share his deep concern at the position paper and whether it has any traction because it is moving away from qualified majority voting. It establishes a two-tier European Union with two different categories of Commissioners. We have to be clear in our view on that. We have had referendums on these matters before, we made pledges to the people of Ireland on putting questions again and, for example, the EU Constitution was redrafted not to diminish the right of every member state to have a stand-alone Commissioner. We will have an opportunity, I have no doubt, to look in detail at this but it is important that these issues do not take legs and make progress without proper oversight and input, particularly from small nations such as us.

My second question relates to the migration discussions that took place at the most recent Foreign Affairs Council. The position in terms of what seemed to be a consensus was that there would be a quota-sharing arrangement across the Union, which two member states opposed. We did not oppose it but we did not say we would take our percentage share of migrants from countries that are clearly at the front end of receiving enormous numbers of migrants, such as Italy, particularly the island of Lampedusa, and Greece and Spain. The Taoiseach responded subsequently to indicate that somehow we would make a financial contribution, like a headage payment, instead of taking a quota. I am interested to hear exactly what the Irish position is on that matter and what the status of the proposal is right now. Is it subject to further ratification? When is it likely to be implemented?