Eric Byrne (Dublin South Central, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms O'Connell for her presentation. I always find it rather interesting. I hope I do not repeat my questions of last year. It is noteworthy that European Movement Ireland is an independent organisation. I will play devil's advocate. How do we know it is independent? It has a private membership system. We do not know who the members are or how many there are. Ms O'Connell could be speaking to us on behalf of an organisation that has a grand sounding name but might have ten members.

I applaud Ms O'Connell on saying that European Movement Ireland looks forward to playing a leading role in facilitating this enhanced engagement with NGOs, unions, parliamentarians, etc. As a parliamentarian, I have been intimately involved in trying to research a trade agreement involving the EU, Colombia and Peru. It involves considerable research with much mystery over how we, as parliamentarians, engage with the issues that are being initiated by the Commission and on which we, as a nation, must ultimately sign off. I have a particular interest in the Colombian end of the thing; we do not know anything about Peru. We are waiting for Ireland to ratify it, but before ratifying it I have many questions to ask.

This committee has debated with professionals the very important issue of the transatlantic trade and investment partnership. I remember being rather surprised that the presentation we got was being presented to us as wonderfully exciting and progressive and that Ireland should support it. The report we were presented with, however, was produced by the London School of Economics, if my memory serves me right. I would never castigate that institution - my daughter went to the London School of Economics and it is a wonderful college - and I would not question its figures. However, does Ms O'Connell believe it is right to present to parliaments a singular opinion on the benefits of TTIP? Does European Movement Ireland play a role in facilitating the debate on such trade agreements?

The figures are fantastically exciting. We emigrate so much and travel so much - our Ministers love to travel - and hence the 99% attendance record. If those figures are analysed, however, there is one bold boy who basically drags down the status of the other Ministers. I note the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government only has a 75% attendance whereas every other Minister were in attendance for 100% of the time. Rather than saying that the average attendance was 99%, which denigrates the Ministers who were there 100% of the time, it might have been important to state that one Minister let the side down by not being in attendance 100% of the time.