Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

I sought advice from EU-critical legal experts and others and a number of them responded that the Bill is far from innocuous, setting a dangerous precedent and not the way forward for Irish parliamentary democracy. One of the experts who gave me considerable advice was Anthony Coughlan from Trinity College, Dublin. He has been critical of the European Union, the European Community and the European Economic Community in the past and some of the problems he has predicted have arisen. If we were to continue along the lines intended in this Bill, it would further justify Mr. Coughlan's warnings about the EU project and the attitude of this State thereto. He stated the Bill amounts to "an attempted coup by the Executive arm of the State, i.e. the Government, against the legislative arm, i.e. the Oireachtas".

Section 2 of the Bill would allow the Minister to create offences entailing maximum penalties of €500,000, or up to three years' imprisonment, without any reference to the Oireachtas. Criminal sanctions should only ever be determined by primary legislation preceded by a full debate and scrutiny in the Dáil and Seanad. The determination of what we believe are appropriate and suitable sanctions should be based on the deliberations of the elected representatives of the Irish people as a whole. To hand this power exclusively to a Minister and his or her officials is undemocratic and anti-democratic, to say the least, if not characteristic of a dictatorship in the making.

Sections 3 and 4 of the Bill give Ministers sweeping powers to alter existing Acts of the Oireachtas by ministerial order without any reference to the Houses of the Oireachtas or its committees and without notifying or obtaining the permission of Deputies and Senators, as long as the Ministers in question claim their orders are necessary to implement EU law. This is scary and it undermines the democratic basis of this House. It is exactly what those who opposed the EEC and its various treaties since its establishment said is part of the architecture of a European super-state. Any Minister of any Government could be forced to change his or her state's laws on foot of European law. At the drop of a hat, all the laws, sanctions and penalties could be altered. If we go down this road, it will be a sad day for democracy and the sovereignty of this State.

This Bill will be opposed by all who believe in democracy, and they should do so for a number of very basic reasons, which were highlighted by the individuals who wrote to me when I sought advice. According to Mr. Coughlan, the Bill should be opposed for the following reasons:

(a) it seeks to give the EU, the Government and individual Ministers the power to decide what are offences, what fines Irish people should pay or how long they should be imprisoned for, without any reference to the Oireachtas — this is a fundamental assault on the civil liberties of citizens;

(b) it opens the door for the EU to lay down a supranational, EU-wide system of criminal sanctions for breaches of EU law and seeks to remove from the Parliaments of Member States the power to decide such matters — this is a fundamental assault on basic democratic principles;

(c) Even if one agrees to permit the EC/EU to lay down supranational criminal sanctions for a particular breach of European law, this Bill would give carte blanche to Ministers and the EU to do this in relation to all and any area of EC law for the indefinite future, without further reference to the Oireachtas. Instead this should be done in each specific case. The civil liberties of citizens are too important to give away so radically and arbitrarily as this.

This Bill, which seeks to have sweeping retrospective effect, must be seen as a component of the now snowballing democratic deficit at the heart of the EU project and this Government's relations therewith. Dr. Roman Hertzog, the former President of Germany, recently questioned whether that country could truly be called a parliamentary democracy, given that the EU is generating 80% of its laws. He was not too happy.

In 2005 the Oireachtas Sub-Committee on European Scrutiny processed some 329 EU legislative proposals in its usual meaningless fashion. Whatever effect it has the legislation which comes before it is already beyond recall. The 329 proposals amounted to nearly 90% of the legislation dealt with by the Oireachtas that year. Where will all of this end when every legally binding decision impacting on the lives of citizens is taken by Government Ministers acting alone in Brussels? What will this Bill sneak through, because we will not get to see everything — the backlog of ultra-regressive and ultra-repressive justice and home affairs measures, for instance?

Sinn Féin is committed to a policy of critical engagement with the EU. That means we will consider whether to support each initiative on the basis of merit and criteria such as effectiveness and human rights compliance. This requires basic opportunities for democratic scrutiny and input. I do not believe this Bill allows for that in the future and on that basis alone this House should not be giving away its opportunities for democratic scrutiny and sanction of legislation in general and Bills such as this in particular. I welcome the speeches of Deputies Durkan and Costello, which like my own, stress the highly anti-democratic nature of this Bill. We totally oppose this Bill on Second Stage.

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