Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the EU Council meeting in Brussels. It was quite a busy weekend, as the EU institutions came together on 12 December to proclaim the Charter of Fundamental Rights. That is a very important body of rights and is incorporated in the reform treaty. It is unfortunate that Britain has chosen to opt out from the legally binding charter, but it is extremely important that we have opted in and that it is part of what we will be voting for in the referendum. This was followed by the signing of the treaty on 13 December and the Council meeting on 14 December.

The reform treaty was the major issue addressed by the Heads of Government in Lisbon and in Brussels. My party will be strongly supporting the referendum that will take place in 2008. We will certainly be doing our best for a "Yes" vote on the treaty. It was good to see in the European poll in today's newspapers that at least 87% of people in Ireland are well disposed to Europe and that they feel that Ireland has benefitted from the EU. Nevertheless, there was a sizeable minority who felt that Ireland had very little say in decisions being made in Brussels. That is the major downside of the equation. It seems to be a stubborn issue that in spite of all the talk of eliminating the democratic deficit and making Europe more accountable, establishing the Forum on Europe, the Joint Committee on EU Scrutiny and the Joint Committee on European Affairs, the citizens of this country are still not convinced that Europe is close to them. That is the challenge that could become an issue at the heart of the referendum debate. How do we convince people that not only can they see benefits, but they are also participants in the manner in which these benefits come about and that they have a major say in decision making? The treaty has considerable provisions that will advance that situation.

The Lisbon treaty provides the EU with a stable and lasting institutional framework, so that the Union will be able to concentrate fully on addressing the concrete challenges ahead, including globalisation and climate change. These are the major issues of the day and the Heads of Government were strong in their espousal of the position on globalisation. A fine document was produced on climate change, humanitarian aid and so on. We will be thrashing out all of these issues over the next few months.

The Taoiseach also said he would be inviting the German Chancellor, Ms Angela Merkel to Ireland during the course of the referendum and that she had already accepted the invitation. He also said he would be inviting the French President, Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy, to come to Ireland. We have already heard on the grapevine that Mr. Le Pen is likely to come here as well. An organisation has been established on the "No" side called Libertas, which will fight the treaty. In a recent press conference, members of this organisation stated that the Minister for Foreign Affairs had signed a blank cheque when signing the reform treaty. These are the types of situations that will arise and the conflicting forces on either side. It would be useful to get a clear idea as quickly as possible on when the referendum will take place, whether it will be accompanied by a referendum on children, when the enabling legislation is likely to come before the House, when the referendum commission is likely to be established and when documentation is likely to be distributed throughout the country. This information should be made publicly available as quickly as possible.

One of the major areas addressed by the European Council was that of freedom, security and justice, and I was impressed by the issues raised. The European Council welcomed the enlargement of the Schengen area to include the new member states and the abolition of the border controls. It also welcomed the establishment of the annual European day against the death penalty on 10 October. That is welcome, considering we had problems with Poland, which have been eliminated. It will be auspicious to have an annual death penalty abolition day. The major area addressed under this heading was the emphasis on the importance of developing as quickly as possible a comprehensive European migration policy and a common immigration policy by 2008 and the need for progress on a common European asylum system for implementation in 2010. These issues are of major concern to Ireland, as well as to all the other countries in Europe.

Yesterday I received some replies to parliamentary questions on asylum seekers from the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform. On the day we signed the European reform treaty 6,636 asylum seekers were in direct provision accommodation in Ireland receiving a miserable €19.10 per week stipend and waiting for their applications to be processed. Some 2,990 of those, 45% of the total, have been asylum seekers for a minimum of 12 months. The application procedures are too long and cumbersome in Ireland. It is hoped that with an EU-wide approach the information will be more available and streamlined and that we can speed up the process of dealing with the cases. If we adopt an EU-wide approach and a common European asylum system, we must be careful to conform to the international conventions and law and ensure the system is not reduced to being a response to the pressing needs of the most hard-pressed member states. We have seen some of that in the recent past.

Ireland needs to establish the link between migration, immigration and asylum seeking and overseas development policies. That area should be emphasised. It is disturbing that the Irish Government distanced itself from proposals on sanctions against employers of illegally staying Third World nationals. I would have thought we would be to the forefront of pursuing anybody who breaks the law by employing people whom they are not entitled to employ. We should be prepared to go ahead with the European position on this issue, but we have not been.

My main concern is on the opt-out clauses. In today's The Irish Times Mr. Jamie Smyth wrote that the opt-out ruling will erode Irish influence on EU justice and border laws. That affects the entire Schengen area, as presented in the decision by the European Court of Justice when the British Government in particular, without opting into the full Schengen system, sought to have a say in the establishment of standards and the drafting of regulations on security features and biometrics in passports. Because we are not party to the Schengen Agreement, will we find ourselves without a role, or with only a discretionary role in any of the legislative proposals on border control, police co-operation and cross-border crime, including all the important police and judicial activity on that?

We need urgent clarification on this from the Government. New asylum seeking and migration policies were decided with great alacrity on 14 December by the Heads of State and will become part of a uniform European approach, which will ensure some badly needed cohesion on the issue. Will we be in difficulties in terms of input because we are not sure if we will be part of the end product of the proposals that will be drawn up? Will input into the drafting process be denied to us? This is a major issue that needs clarification as quickly as possible.

Many concerns were expressed that Eurojust and Europol are not operating effectively. Heads of State felt Europol should be established on a more effective basis by the middle of 2008. It has always been my concern that while we pay lip service to police co-operation and all the police forces do, in practice it is not as effective as it should be. We have put in place the European arrest warrant to enable a more holistic approach to dealing with criminals crossing borders. However, we do not exercise the powers we have. Until we exercise those powers regarding other countries and have Europe-wide co-operation in doing so, I am not sure we will make much progress in dealing with the major issues that affect us, namely, guns and drugs that are imported and exported in Europe.

On the economic, social and environmental issues, again the European Council spoke about progress on the Lisbon strategy for growth and jobs and the new three-year cycle. However, in practice Europe seems to have been lagging the Lisbon Agenda across the board compared with the new superpowers, China and India, and the United States. In the key areas of job creation and research and development, Europe is behind, as is Ireland. We have not met our targets. While Ireland's assessment report is generally good on a number of issues related to education, research and innovation, we are far behind in these key areas that are central to building the economies of the future.

Issues such as agency workers must be sorted. We have taken a poor position on that, denying rights to which agency workers should be entitled, and therefore we cannot get a European directive on the issue. Tax harmonisation must be clarified. Some good work has been done by the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food on Brazilian beef and Europe is taking up a position, which it should have done before. The UN Millennium Declaration on globalisation, to my mind, is a fine holistic document. It gives a very good overview on how globaiisation can have a human face in terms of progress and as regards retaining the social and human agenda, all the time. I hope we have the reform treaty before us in the not too distant future and that there will be a "Yes" vote.

See this speech in context