Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

I would move inland at high speed if I was the Minister of State because he will know all about it when they catch up with him.

The proposed legislation will remove the political input from law-making, thereby usurping the legislative function of the Oireachtas. Under these proposals, legislation will be able to pass from Brussels to national implementation without the input of the Oireachtas. Subsidiarity, therefore, is gone down the tubes and no longer exists; we have no function. I challenge the view of the Minister of State that this improves democratic scrutiny. How does it do so?

We know from recent experience that Ministers do not always sign what goes before them. What will happen if a heavily burdened Minister has a pile of correspondence in front of him, one of which signs into law a statutory instrument? He will obviously delegate that authority to somebody else. These important Ministers must travel around the world, run it and keep it going, be accountable to everybody and anybody and be all things to all people. How in God's name, therefore, will they address the issue of simple democracy that would permit the people to know what was happening and allow the Ministers themselves take responsibility for their actions?

With regard to legislation passing through this House, I have repeatedly said that every time we see legislation, we see a further indication of the Oireachtas being bypassed and Ministers taking unto themselves more responsibility. That may be grand when one goes to Brussels or elsewhere to negotiate. Ministers like to have full authority, but the only authority they will have now is authority that derives from themselves, from looking into their own hearts, like a former founder of Fianna Fáil.

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