Kathleen Lynch (Cork North Central, Labour)
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I am very grateful to the Chairman for reading the introductory note which explains the motion under deliberation. He is clearly much more familiar with it than I am.

I thank the members of the joint committee for making time available today to discuss this motion. This is a very busy time for all parties as the budget approaches. I was a member of the Opposition for a long time so I appreciate the work involved. As members are aware, the motion concerns an opt-in by Ireland to a decision of the European Parliament and of the Council amending the decisions setting up three funds in the asylum and immigration areas. These funds are the European Refugee Fund, the European Return Fund and the European Fund for the Integration of Third-Country Nationals.

The legal basis for the proposed measure lies in Title V of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. Therefore, the proposal is subject to Article 3 of Protocol No. 21 which is annexed to that treaty. Under this treaty, Ireland has three months from the date on which a proposal has been published in all official EU languages to notify the Council of its wish to take part in the adoption and application of the measure. In the present case, the three-month period ends on 27 December next. Alternatively, instead of opting in within this period, Ireland could do so after the proposal has been adopted. However, it is generally better to opt in within the three-month period - all the more so in the present case because the proposal applies only to Ireland and to a limited number of other member states. Under Article 29.4.7° of the Constitution, the prior approval of both Houses of the Oireachtas is required for Ireland to exercise any opt-ins.

The proposed decision increases the co-financing rates under the three funds for member states which receive financial assistance under the instruments set up by the Union to help states experiencing or threatened with serious financial difficulties. This proposal currently applies to Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Romania. The Commission has proposed that the co-financing rates for support from the funds should be increased by 20 percentage points for the states in question, subject to the overall national allocation applicable to the member state. Thus, the normal rate of 50% would become 70% and the 75% rate for projects addressing specific priorities would become 95%. The EU has already adopted measures providing for increased co-financing under other funds, such as the Structural Fund, for member states in financial difficulty. An important feature of the proposal, as explained in the briefing supplied to committee members, is that once an action in a specific annual programme under a fund has been co-financed at the increased rate, that will continue until the end of the eligibility period, even if the country has exited the programme. The eligibility period of an annual programme extends for one and a half years after the year to which it relates, giving a total period of two and a half years. This element of the proposal is appropriate because a member state, upon leaving a support mechanism, is still in transition and continues to need some special measures. It is our intention to emerge from the EU-IMF programme at the end of 2013. Therefore, this aspect of the proposal is very welcome from our point of view. As will be obvious to members, this is a good-news proposal from Ireland's point of view, and the European Commission is to be commended on its introduction. Very properly, it recognised the implications of the economic and financial crisis for the member states affected and, specifically, it saw that it would adversely affect the necessary and desirable work done with the assistance of these three funds. The adoption of this measure will make it easier to source the necessary national matching funding, whether that comes from the State, as would be the case for the return fund, or largely from individual projects, in the case of the other two funds. I recognise that there are always challenges in raising matching funding in the present economic climate but this proposal aims to make this objective more attainable.

The Minister, Deputy Shatter, and I are strongly of the view that Ireland should opt in to this measure. Indeed, we can hardly do otherwise, given that it was formulated with our situation in mind, as well as that of a limited number of other member states. I commend the motion to the committee.