David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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The purpose of this part of the meeting is to discuss the proposal by the European Commission to establish a European public prosecutor's office. On behalf of the joint committee, I welcome Professor Gavin Barrett from University College Dublin who will assist the committee in its consideration of this matter. I congratulate Professor Barrett on his recent appointed to the position of professor.

The format is that I will invite Professor Barrett to make some brief opening remarks, which will be followed by a question and answer session with members. I draw Professor Barrett's attention to the fact that witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of the evidence they give to this committee. However, if they are directed to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and continue to do so, they are entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person or persons or entity, by name or in such as way as to make him, her or it identifiable. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person or persons outside the Houses or an official, either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

I invite Professor Barrett to make a brief opening presentation.

Professor Gavin Barrett:

I thank the Chairman for his introduction and the kind invitation, on behalf of the joint committee, to address members today. In examining the European Commission's proposal and commenting on the Commission's response to the joint committee's reasoned opinion, I am not in any sense acting as a representative of the Commission. What members will hear is simply a third party opinion on the proposal for a Council regulation on the establishment of a European public prosecutor's office, EPPO, from someone with some knowledge of this area of the law. I hope my opinion will be of some use.

As members are aware, the idea of a public prosecutor's office at European level has been under discussion for more than 20 years and under serious discussion for at least 13 years. The European Commission published a green paper on the topic in 2001. The proposal for a European public prosecutor's office is not the only game in town, however, as regards prosecutorial co-operation at European level. Eurojust was formally established in 2002 and already co-ordinates such co-operation. We have, therefore, more than a decade of European level prosecutorial co-operation.

The prospects of going beyond current co-operation in this area by creating a more powerful European level body were boosted by the coming into force of the treaty of Lisbon at the end of 2009, in particular, Article 86 of the treaty which provides that, in order to combat crimes affecting the financial interests of the Union the Council could, by regulation, establish a European public prosecutor's office. These regulations have now appeared in the shape of the EPPO proposal. It was obvious, even from a reading of Article 86 that this proposal has considerable potential for co-operation.

The proposal must be adopted by unanimity. Ireland and the United Kingdom have an opt-out and opt-in by virtue or our protocol in thus matter and provision has also been made for the issue to be bumped up to the European Council in case of any discussion. Other aspects include the special enhanced co-operation procedure in this area. The proposal was clearly expected to give rise to potential for controversy and has done so.

The proposal to establish a European public prosecutor's office was published on 17 July last year. Since then, it has been winding its way through the European Union's legislative procedure. On the one hand, it is moving through the Council of Ministers, where it was debated in October 2013 and March 2014 without any conclusions being reached, and, on the other, it is proceeding through the European Parliament, where it has been voted on and reported on in the relevant committee. It was also debated in a plenary session in March 2014 when a resolution was passed calling for reasonably extensive amendments. That is the current position in respect of the proposal.

Apart from what is taking place in the Council and Parliament, another game or procedure is taking place simultaneously. I refer to what is occurring in national parliaments under the subsidiarity mechanism. As members will be aware, under Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union and Protocol No. 2 - the subsidiarity protocol - national parliaments get to operate the yellow and orange card procedures, in other words, they police compliance with the principle of subsidiarity.

We can come back to the procedure but essentially under Article 6, national parliaments get eight weeks to send to the presidents of the various European institutions reasoned opinions on why they consider the draft in question does not comply with subsidiarity. Each national parliament gets two votes. With 28 states, that is 56 votes in total. Generally, when reasoned opinions represent at least a third of all votes - that is 19 votes in total - the draft has to be reviewed. In other words, it gets yellow-carded. The threshold, though, as regards Justice and Home Affairs, JHA measures is lower than that. It is only a quarter. That is why the draft European Public Prosecutor's Office, EPPO regulation was regarded as having being yellow-carded even though only 18 votes were actually cost against it. It earned reasoned opinions from Cyprus, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Ireland, Malta, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden, Holland and the UK. This was a total of 18 votes when only 14 were needed.

Purely for the purposes of reminding ourselves, the Oireachtas submitted a reasoned opinion in October of last year. In that report, which was drafted and proposed by this committee, the Oireachtas expressed its opinion that the proposal did not comply with the principle of subsidiarity for three reasons. The first was that it considered criminal law to be primarily a national competence and the investigation and prosecution of all fraud, including that against the EU, to be primarily a duty of national authorities. Second, the committee took the view that the Commission had not adequately considered the option of strengthening existing or alternative mechanisms and had merely assumed that an EU level measure was the only way of moving forward. Third, the committee considered that more emphasis should have been placed on improving co-operation between organisations like Eurojust, the European Anti-Fraud Office, OLAF and the member states and so on. Also, the argument was made that the Commission had not demonstrated that member states were taking inadequate action against EU fraud.

The Commission confirmed that the subsidiarity control mechanism had been triggered on 6 November. It issued a communication on 27 November 2013. The reply to the Oireachtas, in particular, had two limbs to it. One was the letter sent to the Oireachtas on 14 March, the other was the communication sent on 27 November 2013. The letter was supposed to deal with matters that did not raise subsidiarity concerns at all. The view was taken that objection A, the competence objection, raised by the Oireachtas did not raise a subsidiarity issue. It was addressed nonetheless. It simply made the case that it did have competence in relation to this, that it was an area of shared competence essentially and that under Article 86 it had been given the power to adopt the European public prosecutor's initiative. There is more to the letter than that but that is the essence of it. Objections B and C in the committee's reasoned opinion were addressed more generally in the context of a communication directed at all of the parliaments in the European Union.

In the committee's communications with me, it has raised five concerns. With its permission, I will go through each of those five concerns in turn and try to address them.

The first area of concern that the committee mentioned was the decision of the Commission to place the first point of the reasoned opinion of the Oireachtas outside the scope of subsidiarity. In other words, to treat competence as not raising a subsidiarity issue at all. Our concerns here can be limited to the extent that the competence question was addressed. It just said this was not a legitimate subsidiarity question and that it does not belong in a subsidiarity review.

This raises the issue of what is subsidiarity. It would not have been too much for us to ask the Treaty drafters for a workable European-level definition of the principle that national parliaments are supposed to apply but we actually do not have that. Perhaps the reason we do not have that is that differences between the member states meant that there was never actually consensus as to what subsidiarity means. We do not have a comprehensive and authoritative, let alone universally binding, working definition of subsidiarity. All we have are Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union, TEU and Article 5 of the subsidiarity protocol which are fairly thin definitions, with the Article 5 definition stating that in order for subsidiarity to be complied with, the aims of the measure cannot be sufficiently achieved by the members states and then - a positive part - by reason of the scale or affects of the action, that it can be better achieved at Union level.

Procedural guidance is given in Article 5 of the protocol. For instance, it says that draft legislative acts need to be justified and they need detailed statements and some assessment of the proposal's financial impact and so on and so forth. It is rather detailed procedural stuff. Beyond that, that is pretty much it as regards guidance regarding the meaning of subsidiarity. No spontaneous consensus has emerged between national parliaments on what subsidiarity means. Does it include competence or not? That is the issue the committee wants to raise. Actually, the point can be argued either way.

The actual structure of the treaty provisions distinguish competence, subsidiarity and proportionality. One would expect, if that was the case, that in fact competence actually is a different issue to subsidiarity. That would be the end of the matter in that regard. Furthermore, logically, keeping subsidiarity and competence separate is more conceptually neat in the sense that if the European Union does not have any competence then it is not necessary to consider at what level that competence is going to be exercised. On the other hand, in reality, legality, subsidiarity and proportionality questions all do tend to get intermixed. Some writers on the topic feel that even theoretically they are hard enough to distinguish. One argument is that if there is no competence, then it is not possible to say that the European Union is going to be more efficient. It can therefore be said that the subsidiarity test has failed. An argument can be constructed that competence issues are subsidiarity issues. Certainly, there is at least one writer in the area, Kiiver, who actively encourages national parliaments to raise competence issues. It can be seen that the Commission does not agree with that, so the committee will collide with the Commission if it continues raising competence issues. However, maybe that is no harm. It is a matter for the committee and arguments can be raised in either direction. However, it is possible to see the way the Commission feels.

The second area of concern was the general response from the Commission. This question really relates to the substantive response of the Commission. There is the competence issue which I have already looked at. The second objection of the Oireachtas concerned inadequate consideration of alternative or existing mechanisms. In response to this, the Commission considered that in its November 2013 communication. The reasoning was fairly extensive in that regard. It stretches over approximately three pages. There are a number of interesting features to that. One of them is that it agreed that it should take into account its own impact assessment report. That was something the committee mentioned in its own report. Some states would not agree with that because impact assessment reports are not always translated. Some states object and say they cannot be used to defend a measure on subsidiarity grounds. The Commission very much takes the view it can do that. It, essentially, in relation to existing or alternative mechanisms, restated its position. It pointed out the impact assessment report, the explanatory memorandum and the accompanying legislative and financial statement of the Commission and, essentially, did not go beyond that. It basically restated its position and said that was answer enough. Interestingly enough, in terms of looking at comparative efficiency, it denied the need to look at the situation in individual member states. It argues that looking at action at the level of member states generally and that being generally inefficient was enough. It went in to some statistical detail in that regard. It looked at, in particular, statistics that had been produced by OLAF showing that national criminal proceedings were taking too long and the levels of successful prosecutions were too low. Therefore, there was a quite detailed response in that regard which relied very much on statistics. As regards the alternative mechanisms at European level, the Commission relied heavily in its communication on the inherent limitations of those mechanisms.

The Commission relied heavily in its communication on the inherent limitations of those mechanisms. Basically, it noted that the European Anti-Fraud Office, OLAF, is limited to administrative investigations, noted no prosecution is necessary after an OLAF investigation and that Europol and Eurojust have no powers to conduct or direct investigations. Basically, that was how the Commission answered the various objections. There is a little more to it than that but that is most of what it had to say on the matter. It is an extensive answer to the Oireachtas. Some of it is simply a restatement but some of it goes further into statistical detail. There is approximately three pages of justification.
Area of concern No. 3 expressed by the Oireachtas was how the Commission considers a reasoned opinion. The committee noted in its communication to me that the Commission appears to have the final say in what does or does not breach subsidiarity and, if so, asked about the benefits of issuing a reasoned opinion. It is something of an existential question: what are we doing here? Procedurally, how does the Commission consider a reasoned opinion? To a certain extent we should see things from the Commission's point of view. It has limited time and resources. Procedurally, it is not unreasonable for the Commission to seek to gather together similar responses from the various parliaments and answer them en massewith a general communication. I suppose I can understand the Commission doing that. At the same time it is important that the job be taken seriously and that adequate work be put into coming up with the response, but I am unsure of the committee's view in this regard. It is a reasonably extensive response stretching over several pages.
The question of the Commission having the final say in what does or does not breach subsidiarity was raised. Ultimately, the Commission does not have the final say in respect of what violates subsidiarity. Subsidiarity is a legal principle and its meaning, ultimately, is a matter for the Court of Justice of the European Union to decide on. Article 19 of the Treaty on European Union states that it is up to the EU Court of Justice to ensure that in the interpretation and application of the treaties the law is observed. Under Article 263 it is possible for a review action to be brought before the Court of Justice. If someone believes subsidiarity is being violated, whether a member state, an institution, or, in certain circumstances, a private person, then the matter can be litigated before the Court of Justice. Above all for the purposes of this committee, under Article 8 of Protocol No. 2, section 7(4) of the European Union Act 2009 and Seanad and Dáil Standing Orders, this committee can initiate a process requiring the Government to bring the matter before the Court of Justice. If the committee believes sufficiently strongly about the subsidiarity issue and that the Commission is wrong in this regard, then it can initiate the process of bringing the matter before the Court of Justice to get the court to consider whether the Commission was right or wrong. I am unsure how strongly the committee feels about it, but it remains an option at the end of the day.
Realistically, on the other hand, the Court of Justice has tended to be rather hesitant in being over-elaborative in its approach to subsidiarity. Realistically, the Commission has a good deal of power in deciding whether subsidiarity has been breached. This has several consequences. The committee could simply accept the Commission view and seek to influence the Commission within the parameters of that definition. As an alternative approach the committee could dispute the Commission's interpretation on the meaning of subsidiarity and, if necessary or if the committee so wishes, take that dispute as far as the Court of Justice.
The committee raised another issue about the consequences of this and set out a rather lengthy objection. It was always anticipated that the procedural consequences of objecting to a reasoned opinion or a yellow card would be relatively weak. In deploying the yellow card procedure, basically a parliament secures the entitlement to get the matter reviewed. Then it can be maintained, amended or withdrawn subsequently. In a sense the subsidiarity mechanism is narrow in that it only focuses on subsidiarity. It is weak in terms of what a parliament can get the Commission to do. However, one approach the committee could adopt in this respect is to try to compensate for the institutional weakness or the weakness of the consequences of a subsidiarity warning by trying to push the boundaries of subsidiarity. Does it include competence? Then it could put in competence objections. Does it include proportionality? Then it could put in proportionality obligations. Does it require more detailed justifications above what a parliament has received? Then the committee could ask for more detailed justifications and object if it does not get them. In other words, a parliament could try to compensate for the weakness of what it can demand from the Commission by broadening the scope of the procedure.
Committee members should ask what the benefits of issuing a reasoned opinion are. Certainly, it means the committee is forcing the political system to engage in a debate and forcing the Executive to listen and justify itself. Issues would be raised that would not be raised otherwise. Certainly, when the early warning mechanism was not in place and the Court of Justice was the only means of enforcing this procedure, issues such as those being raised by the Oireachtas simply were not raised. What is happening here is that national parliaments are carving out a role for themselves at European level.
On the other hand, let us consider the European role of every committee in the Oireachtas. The committees could have many European roles. Committees can examine secondary legislation, such as statutory instruments and determine whether they are being properly used. Committees can call a Minister to appear before them and ask him or her to be accountable for what is going on in Council meetings. Committees can ventilate issues at national level and produce reports or engage in political dialogue at European level. There are a range of things committees can do in respect of European matters. Committee members must decide for themselves where to focus their efforts at the end of the day.
I believe the subsidiarity issue is worth devoting a certain amount of time to. I am pleased that the committee issued a reasoned opinion. It will be broader because when the treaties are revised - they will be revised in due course - the subsidiarity gate will be widened. Committees will be expressly given broader powers to consider issues going beyond subsidiarity. Even now, the committee can give subsidiarity as broad a definition as it wishes and argue that these considerations need to be take into account. Were I in the position the committee is in, that is how I would seek to argue subsidiarity.
Area of concern No. 4 relates to whether there is any further recourse once the Commission makes its decision. The short answer is: yes, there is. In fact, there are several methods of recourse. First, let us not forget Protocol No. 2. Ireland has an opt-out with an opt-in in respect of all justice and home affairs matters. If the committee really does not like this particular measure, it can push for us not to opt in to it. That is the first recourse. We do not have to adopt this measure if we would rather not.
In evidence given before this committee on 16 October the relevant officials in the Department of Justice and Equality indicated that it has been decided that it would be best for Ireland for the time being not to opt in to this particular measure, but that if appropriate adjustments can be made then we might opt in afterwards. In terms of where they go from now, committee members should be aware that there is a debate to be had on whether we opt in or opt out. I do not believe there is any great difficulty, ultimately, and if appropriate adjustments can be made, for Ireland to opt in. However, the committee may take a different view in that regard and if so, it should push for Ireland not to opt in.
What else can the committee do? Ireland is taking part in the debates on the adoption of this measure, although it is not guaranteed that we will opt in to it. We are in a unique and privileged position in this regard. The committee should seek to influence the Minister. If there are particular things the committee wishes to see in this proposal members should get the Minister before the committee before she goes to Europe and indicate that they are keen to see these things in the measure in question.
If the committee really believes that this measure violates subsidiarity, notwithstanding the Commission's responses, then it should initiate the Article 8 procedure. Once the measure is adopted - the committee should be quick about it, because there is a two-month procedure - the committee could get the matter brought before the Court of Justice. The committee should note that the Oireachtas can instruct the Government to bring the matter before the Court of Justice. The committee should note further that the process of instruction begins in this committee. The committee makes a report and recommends it to the Oireachtas. There is a range of options open to the committee. The fact that the Commission has rejected the committee's opinion in this regard does not mean that it has no further recourse or that there is nothing else to do.
I will set out my view on area of concern No. 5. The committee indicated that the Croatian Parliament had stated that the Commission was giving preference to the legal rather than the political interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity and asked whether I would explain legal and political subsidiarity.

A couple of points occur in regard to this. The first is that subsidiarity is a legal principle at the end of the day. It is defined in Article 5 of the protocol. It might not be a very adequate definition, but it is a legal principle. Second, it is very vaguely defined in those provisions. As a result of that, there is an ongoing debate as to what subsidiarity actually means, and that debate is in part there because the European Court of Justice refuses to get involved. It is being driven by national parliaments at the moment, although it is a legal debate, so there is a political aspect to it. I presume that is what the Croatian parliament was getting at. What they were essentially saying in accusing the European Commission of adopting a legal approach in relation to it, was that the Commission was taking the same lenient, generous, restrained and deferential approach to what subsidiarity means as the European Court of Justice has been taking for years. The Croatians were saying that was not good enough for them, they want there to be a tougher, harder and broader definition in relation to subsidiarity

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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As it happens, just this morning we received a communique on foot of an inter-parliamentary meeting that was held on September 17 in Paris, which I will circulate. It relates to a "common declaration on the proposal for a Council regulation on the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor's Office ... signed in their own name by members of national parliaments of the European Union". We did not attend this meeting in Paris as it happened. The communique maintains that "the establishment of a European Public Prosecutor's Office, to reinforce the fight against financial crime affecting the European Union's financial interests, which is made possible by Article 86 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, should be supported and should fully take into account the positions and fundamental principles supported by the national parliaments".
The communique continues:

The proposal for a Council regulation on the establishment of the European Public Prosecutor's Office ... was largely debated within the national parliaments and was the subject of a 'yellow card' procedure in respect of the subsidiarity procedure, 14 chambers having judged that the proposal doesn't comply with the principle of subsidiarity.
The signatories of this common position consider that the European Public Prosecutor's Office, EPPO, should be established under a collegial structure, composed of national members drawn from their respective judicial systems. The EPPO shouldn't have exclusive competence, but shared competence with the judicial authorities of the Member States, combined with a general right of evocation. Several key provisions of the proposal for a regulation, such as the judicial review of EPPO's investigation and prosecution's acts, the admissibility of evidence and the rules on prescription periods are lacunar and must be subject to a more thorough work.
It should be emphasised that the work of the Council of the European Union under the Greek Presidency is heading in the right direction and that it is desirable that the work continue under the Italian Presidency. Ongoing negotiations should have to ensure the independence, the efficiency and the added-value of the EPPO.

Professor Gavin Barrett:

It is an interesting development, and it shows that other national parliaments have not given up in their efforts to influence the shape of this proposal. I do not believe that kind of initiative would have been taken if the subsidiarity early warning mechanism was not there. There is therefore a kind of penumbra of other things that are going on as a result of the subsidiarity mechanism. We can look forward to national parliaments seeking to throw their weight around a bit more at European level, as well they should, in relation to various matters. An issue for this committee is then to consider how it can throw its weight around a bit more. One way I would suggest is that ideas count at European level. This is an idea that has been put in there. I do not know if that idea will be adopted but at least it is out there being observed and listened to all across the EU. If we compare the reasoned opinion that was offered by the Oireachtas with other reasoned opinions, it was a significant document, but it was also relatively brief. I wonder if we could throw in more ideas. Where would we get those ideas from? The inter-parliamentary exchange, for instance, other opinions are being put up there, and there is a wealth of ideas and suggestions and cross-fertilisation that could be used by the various parliaments, including this one. Resources are very tight but there are some ways in which that can be compensated for by using the ideas of others.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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Even for us to attend that meeting proved difficult because of resources.

Professor Gavin Barrett:

It was a resource issue? That is a pity.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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We have to very careful about the resources we have because we are very limited in that. The other issue is that our Parliament is developing a committee system now much more than it had in the past. Other parliaments are way ahead of us on this. The parliaments themselves and jurisdictions have far more say and authority than we have here, though it is changing slowly. I am not sure whether any colleagues here wish to respond to Professor Barrett.

Alan Farrell (Dublin North, Fine Gael)
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I had a number of questions but then Professor Barrett answered them all.

Ivana Bacik (Independent)
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I apologise to Professor Barrett for being so late. I had hoped to be here because I am particularly interested in this. I thank Deputy Corcoran Kennedy for filling me in. It is important and I suspect that we would attend any such future meetings because we do have a very particular position on this issue and as Professor Barrett has said, it is important that we make our voices heard.

Professor Gavin Barrett:

I would encourage the committee to take part in meetings like that, and to maximise the use it makes of its parliamentary representative over in Brussels. I would also encourage the committee to liaise with other committees. It is possible to make joint submissions with other committees. There is a whole range of possible responses that can be made. There is an increasing number of relevant bodies in addition to COSAC, the conference of the committees of the national parliaments of the EU member states dealing with European affairs. There are bodies in the fields of common foreign and security policy and monetary union, for example. There are increasing avenues to co-operate with other European parliaments. The strength of togetherness is particularly necessary in order that this Parliament benefit from it, because resources are so tight.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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It is interesting that this document emanating from the meeting in Paris suggests that the EPPO should not have exclusive competence but shared competence with the judicial authorities of the member states, which is what we were advocating ourselves from this end.

Professor Gavin Barrett:

I think you will find that there is a great deal of commonality between the responses of the various member states' parliaments in terms of the objections they had. That facilitated the Commission's response by way of a communication. I suspect that the Commission would say that there is already a degree of shared competence in this regard because, they would say, the enforcement of the EPPO proposal will be done via the various national systems, for instance delegated public prosecutors in the various member states. Review of the validity of the actions of the EPPO will also be carried out by the national courts and so on. I suspect that will be the Commission's argument. Perhaps, though, there is room for negotiation on whether more shared competence could be fostered.

Ivana Bacik (Independent)
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I apologise if this question has already been asked, but in terms of the practical details around this committee's representation at such meetings, is there a way of getting advice on what we should prioritise attending? We do indeed get invitations to many different meetings and clearly we would particularly wish to be represented only where the meeting is going to produce some sort of common position like this one. Is there a way of knowing in advance, so we could prioritise giving limited resources and time? My second question is whether most committees that are active at this level tend to send the chairperson or a specialist designated from within the committee? Clearly, continuity is better if the same person goes all the time.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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The French National Assembly seemed to initiate this particular meeting in France because they are especially interested in it, I understand. A large number of members from the French National Assembly signed it.

Professor Gavin Barrett:

There is a range of opportunities there. I would fully agree with Senator Bacik on the need to box clever in relation to this. No matter how strongly it feels, there is no point in the Oireachtas issuing a reasoned opinion in relation to a measure when there is not the slightest hope that it is going to accumulate the necessary number of votes in order for a yellow card to be issued. What the committee wants to be doing is finding out information, and the best way of doing that is via the Monday morning meetings. I believe all of the EU member states' parliaments, including the Oireachtas, have a parliamentary representative based in the European Parliament offices in Brussels. That representative will be able to give the committee a heads-up on what looks likely to get a yellow card, and then the committee needs to get the Oireachtas involved.

I would also advise members to take a look at IPEX, the EU's interparliamentary information exchange website. It is a goldmine of resources from different member state parliaments, most of which are much better resourced than our Parliament. While the Oireachtas does have its own legal adviser, many other parliaments have a range of advisers specialising in particular areas. The committee could ride on the back of that expertise and avail of those arguments and the information that is there.

I already referred to COSAC and the various other committees. The European Parliament, too, is very interested in this type of co-operation with member states. Members should not forget the individual committees within the European Parliament, which would welcome engagement with this committee. Indeed, it is those committees which facilitate the parliamentary representatives by providing them with office space and other resources in Brussels.

Ivana Bacik (Independent)
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Professor Barrett has given us very useful direction.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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I thank Professor Barrett for giving of his time today and providing his help and advice to the committee. I expect we will engage with him again on these very important and interesting issues. The system is evolving and developing as we speak. I note, for example, that national parliaments are to have much more of a say in what is happening at European level.

Professor Gavin Barrett:

That is undoubtedly the case. Indeed, I would be most surprised if their powers were not extended in the next treaty revision. I fully expect a broadening of the range of issues in which national parliaments are expected to engage. The European Union needs as much democratic legitimacy as it can get its hands on. Moreover, the European Parliament has been given as many powers it can have. In fact, it has powers that make it almost the equivalent of a national parliament at European level. In terms of parliamentary developments, there is only one way for this to go, and that is increased powers for national parliaments.

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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That will mean more challenges and a greater workload for us. I thank Professor Barrett again for his engagement with the committee.

We will suspend until 2 p.m. when we will meet with Ms Emily Logan, chief commissioner designate of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission.