Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Murphy for his comments about the attendance of Ministers at EU meetings. They prepared well for the Presidency. It is their obligation and responsibility to attend those meetings. I think two meetings were not attended by Ministers, one of which was held on 16 March when people were away.

The issue of democratic legitimacy and accountability is central to the whole business now. When President Schulz spoke in this Chamber on behalf of the European Parliament he made this point very strongly.

Following the ratification of the Lisbon treaty, one cannot have a European budget without the approval, imprimaturand consent of the European Parliament. As the elections will be held next year, this is clearly an issue for sectors, groups and individuals who want to make their cases. That is why it is important to get the MFF through during the current Presidency. If the matter is left outstanding into the post-summer period, people will begin to focus on the European elections next year. People sometimes play games with issues involving these serious matters. We made the point at the meeting in Brussels last night that the democratic legitimacy and accountability that Deputies Dara Murphy and Eric Byrne heard about today are crucial. That is what the people decided in respect of the Lisbon treaty. The European Council can no longer make its own decision on the budget. It must rightly be the subject of consent by the elected representatives of the peoples of Europe, which means there is room for discussion on own resources and flexibility and a review period between 2014 and 2020. While no one knows in what shape the economies will be in 2017 or 2018, there is room for discussion about it. We hope during our Presidency to reflect what the European Parliament is saying, which is that there should be some scope for analysis.

There was a committee of the Houses of the Oireachtas previously which dealt with European decisions. It was a small sub-committee of what was then the Joint Committee on European Affairs, and it was required to deal with a flood of decisions, directives and regulations every week. They became a torrent and the sub-committee was in a position to scrutinise only small numbers of serious decisions. It had to hope for the best in terms of covering the issues of real importance and hope that the process undertaken by our permanent representation in Brussels and by negotiating Ministers and Ministers of State ensured everything else was in order. Deputy Dara Murphy will be only too aware that in times gone by Ireland tended to implement regulations and directives to the nth degree in their first year while other countries took their time to see what effect they might have over a period. We seemed to do it all in one, which sometimes caused problems, including with the soil directive. These things work themselves out over a period.

In the coming period, democratic legitimacy and accountability will be critical both here and from a European point of view. In the course of discussions about where we are headed, the views of Members will be more than welcome in committees or here in the House.

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