John Perry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fine Gael)

We were speaking of the six-year statute bar. How would this impact on the constitutionality of a case that went back 12 years?

This will give a wrong signal, even if this involved attaching all the orders to it. This involves thousands of statutory instruments and directives. Ireland has benefited considerably from Europe and in every sense the Irish experience has been a success story, but was it bad management that allowed this through? Was it not identified prior to the Kennedy case that we were failing in our duty to regularise this matter in the Dáil? This involves going back to 1972, more than 34 years. The long time involved is critically important in introducing such a sweeping change. Why did the Minister of State need to go back as far as 1972? Perhaps he might explain the impact of going back to 1972, rather than to 1982 or 1992. What would be the consequences if this provision applied retrospectively to 1992 rather than for 30 years? He might explain the impact and the likely fall-out from this. No doubt the Minister of State has applied due diligence in assessing the consequences of the Bill and the likely impact in the future of enacting it. It is important he explains that, although I heard him speak this morning. He is doing a good job as Minister of State with responsibility for European Affairs.

It is important to put some of the down sides on the table. For every positive there must be a negative. I am quite certain there must be a certain level of negative impact involved in this, and it would be important to voice some of those concerns. The one case in which I was involved was that of the illegal charges on the elderly where the State fought tirelessly to ensure the Statute of Limitations applied, even though the matter went back 25 years. The Government is certainly cherry-picking when it speaks of acting retrospectively for such a length of time in this legislation.

The purpose of the Bill is to amend the European Communities Act 1972 which allowed the transposition of certain EU law into Irish law by way of statutory instrument. However, it has been argued by veterinary pharmacists in a legal challenge that it was not lawful to make ministerial orders that comprised criminal sanctions, and this Bill will clarify the position and will allow a Minister to transpose into Irish law EU law which carries the penalty of imprisonment or fines.

The issue of fines has arisen in cases related to agriculture, the environment and fisheries. Following the Sea Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Bill 2005, it is important that issues of fines and criminal sanctions would be debated here because they will have a significant impact. This Bill, in short, will allow the Minister to put in place a regulation that can send a person to prison without it ever appearing on the Order Paper of this House. One must remember that to date all actions of the State have been debated in the House. The laws of the land are created here in the House. They are debated and voted upon. It is the duty of the Government to bring in legislation and it is up to the establishment to implement it. It is not good that we are considering giving a Minister such wide-ranging powers without involving validation by these Houses.

The Bill also will retrospectively validate all statutory instruments made since 1973 to transpose EU legislation into Irish law, including those that compromise criminal sanction. The main problems of the Bill are as follows. It validates legislation retrospectively. That was the point in the case of the illegal charges, which is only one such issue. There was a vast number of other issues dealt with by the House. For instance, the Sea-Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2006 criminalised fishermen for minor offences whereas on the Continent minor offences are dealt with by administration. I spoke of the Government cherry-picking what suits. We in Fine Gael have stated in the policy document launched last week that when in Government we will amend the Sea-Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Act 2006 to decriminalise fishermen who commit minor offences. This is the norm within Europe and Commissioner Borg, the EU Commissioner for fisheries, has stated clearly that this is the best practice. If the Minister of State is speaking of transposing EU statutory instruments and directives, and validating them with legislation, he is cherry-picking certain aspects of legislation. If we are speaking here of unifying policies retrospectively and giving a Minister such legislative powers, one must consider the Sea-Fisheries and Maritime Jurisdiction Bill 2005, with which I dealt quite closely and which was brought in here on a certain amount of falsified facts that there were people in breach of the law. The case was unproven and the plaintiffs had not been brought through the courts. It was an allegation made. If we are speaking of decriminalisation when it comes to EU law, the Government should seriously consider decriminalising fishermen convicted of a minor offence. Such people are now deemed as criminals. In certain cases it prevents them from travelling to the US and to the Continent.

This Bill grants Ministers too much unscrutinised authority. It removes the European Union even further from the day-to-day lives of citizens and it removes the political input, the entire legislative function of the Oireachtas, from law making. Legislation can pass from Brussels to national implementation without the input of the Oireachtas — that is the nub of this case.

Far too often we are seeing the role of the Oireachtas being removed. We see it in the health service, where accountability lies not with the Minister but with the HSE. We are educated in not raising a matter with the Minister, who has now delegated this function to the HSE. That level of accountability is not good enough. The National Roads Authority is another such autonomous body, where the Minister for Transport tells us not to raise related matters here in the House but to contact the National Roads Authority.

We are elected by the people to represent them. Issues such as this are fundamental to the national parliament. It is important to have a debate on Europe. People can be quite suspicious about the entire European project when something of this nature can be brought to the Dáil on a Thursday without any real debate. It is essential that an extensive level of debate takes place on this matter.

Section 3 allows a Minister to implement EC law by way of statutory instrument and to amend domestic legislation in this way without any accountability. This leads to a concern that the authority of the Oireachtas may be superseded by individual Ministers. It may also lead to legislation by stealth as the scrutiny of ministerial statutory instruments is neither as rigorous nor democratically accountable as the scrutiny of legislation.

An enlarged Europe, consisting of up to 500 million people, is in question and this includes countries that joined the European Union, recently. Other countries may join the EU in the coming years. While Members of European Parliament are elected by the people, it is equally important to recognise the overlap of European politics, national politics and local politics that should be integrated.

We have all heard about the National Forum on Europe and the openness and transparency expected of an open society. It is clear the Government has been caught without its homework done on this matter. The Kennedy case, which was fundamentally based on the Sea Fisheries Bill, indicated the Government was in breach of legislation in imposing EU fines on coastal communities.

When before the Seanad Fine Gael did not oppose this legislation but put forward amendments to change aspects of the Bill we found of concern. Our amendments were not accepted and our Front Bench seeks to oppose the further progress of the Bill on the basis the Government has not indicated any concern regarding the legislation or any willingness to accept amendments.

We sought to amend the Bill to require that all statutory instruments deriving from European legislation be laid before the Oireachtas for 21 sitting days to allow any Member to challenge its provisions. When no challenge is made the statutory instrument can automatically become law. This is a fair proposal because we are not suggesting retrospectively laying thousands of statutory instruments before the Oireachtas; we are referring to the future. If we are discussing European integration it is important people be aware of statutory instruments. It is important that a Minister in charge of any Department can indicate that a statutory instrument is coming and put a notification to that effect on his or her website explaining that it relates to his or her Department and will be laid before the Oireachtas, with Members invited to raise parliamentary questions to bring it into the public domain if they have concerns.

We would also like to remove the retrospective effect of this Bill by amendment as we do not believe it is constitutional in this regard, when one considers the statute bar of six years. Perhaps the Minister of State at the Department of the Taoiseach, Deputy Treacy, could explain why he is going back to 1973 with this measure.

As the Bill passes through the Dáil we should state clearly that these amendments are important. When one hears the level of debate on this matter it is clear that people feel the European project has been an extraordinarily successful story. People are concerned, however, at the lack of information relating to this Bill. This is titled a short Bill but a sample scope of the types of statutory instrument retrospectively given legislative powers should have been supplied. What Departments do the statutory instruments affect and which have the most? This has not been discussed.

I have huge concerns because I feel this Bill is a further diminution of the role of elected Members of Dáil Éireann. This is legislation the Government wanted to perfect before the conclusion of the 29th Dáil and I think a marker was put down a year and a half ago. The Sea Fisheries Bill was well debated and at that point each Department could have discussed the statutory instruments that applied to it. The Minister of State is discussing regulations that go back over 30 years and affect 15 Departments.

The Government could have done far more to explain the likely impact of this. This is not a clean sweep but rather a very lazy way of perfecting something that should have been done many years ago. It is regrettable the Government has taken such a lazy attitude and engaged in a cherry picking approach. The question of the Government being duty bound to make a payment to the citizens of this State was automatically blocked. If retrospection meant there would be a refund to the citizens of Ireland I can assure the House that such retrospection would not go back one month. Whatever the consequences of this Bill, there will be no impact of financial benefit to any citizen — though infringements of the law may see penalties arise. It is regrettable that we have taken this line.

Many Members have taken their full allotted time to speak on this issue and the Minister of State must realise he cannot remain seated at this late stage without taking account of their concerns. He is duty bound to give a concession and, at least, accept the amendment that in future a statutory instrument deriving from Europe be laid before the Oireachtas for 21 sitting days to allow any Member challenge its provisions and cause a debate or put down a related parliamentary question. We are talking about the integration of local, national and EU politics and it is important that people be informed on these matters. A Member of Dáil Éireann should be aware of statutory instruments that are signed into law and they should be discussed.

The Minister of State has not even formulated a procedure that would put statutory instruments on a computer database. Such a measure would ensure statutory instruments do not arrive unannounced and that a notification period of their arrival could be given. A system should exist in the Minister of State's Department that flags statutory instruments that are due and circulates them to the relevant Opposition spokespeople. A brief explanatory notice of the impact of these statutory instruments could also be included.

I am disappointed the Government has presented this as a procedural Bill that will get nodded through the House without disapproval. The Government has misread the situation but has an opportunity to make amends. A clear message has been sent by speaker after speaker today urging the Minister of State to act on this. We are talking about the European Union, European politics and national politics. We are talking about the accountability of public representatives elected by the people and I assure the Minister of State that if he was on this side of the House and Fine Gael was introducing this Bill he would take a similar point of view to the one we have adopted.

He must consider the matter objectively as he cannot be happy about the agenda that is being driven by someone. Perhaps the Attorney General, or somebody else, is advising that this Bill can be pushed through without debate but that person is misreading the situation entirely. We are talking about a democratic deficit and people are very concerned about European affairs. People listening to this debate will assume we are rushing this Bill through roughshod, with Europe issuing statutory instruments and Ministers who are not accountable to the Dáil left to do as they wish.

The Minister of State has listened attentively all day and he has an opportunity to make a concession that will show some appreciation of the input that has been made by every speaker.

See this speech in context