Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

Just 148 Bills have been passed in that time, which is approximately one tenth of the 1,452 documents which have been considered by the sub-committee since 2002. Not all of the 1,452 documents are legislative provisions, but approximately three quarters of them are. That means, in effect, that we are being legislated for from Europe. This House spends most of its time dealing with and teasing out domestic legislation, while EU documents appear on the Order Paper only to be referred to the sub-committee without debate and considered by the sub-committee in the bunker before being sent back to this House to be passed without debate. EU legislation never sees the floor of this House to any great extent unless EU directives have to be formally transposed into legislation. Ministers take or do not take direction on a given matter from the sub-committee, before making or not making an input on the matter at the Council of Ministers. We have no way of checking whether a Minister makes an input at EU level. We do not really have any full and thorough pre-scrutiny and post-scrutiny mechanisms. We have to consider whether the current process is able to deal adequately with the enormity of the material that comes before the Oireachtas. Are the resources in place to deal with such material? Have we considered sufficiently the seriousness of the work that is being done?

I compliment the Minister and Deputy Allen on the enormous amount that has been done in this respect. This is the third annual report. I suggest that a future report should involve an examination of and a statement on whether the sub-committee has the resources it needs to conduct its work properly and tease out the various matters sufficiently. Can we be sure that what is being done is being followed through? Perhaps the next report should include a set of recommendations on the further actions which might be needed to ensure the full terms of the 2002 Act are fulfilled in their entirety.

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