Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

On behalf of the Rural Independent Group, I too want to pay tribute to the late Tommie Gorman. He was a wonderful journalist and wonderful person. He visited the Circle of Friends cancer care centre in Tipperary only months ago and gave up his time there. He was in my parish some weeks ago. He was a wonderful man. Ní bheidh a leithéid arís ann.

The response of the Government and TDs that the EU will take care of us and that we cannot go it alone on the migration issue is naive in the extreme. There are many measures that Ireland can take independently. People do not realise that the EU is part of the problem. It is fundamentally undemocratic to vote for a pact as a whole when each measure was voted on and debated separately in the EU for a period of ten years. Why the indecent haste? What is the rush? There is no time limit on voting on this pact, so why are we rushing to vote on it tonight in the Chamber after so little scrutiny? I do not believe this is what the Irish people voted for on the Lisbon Treaty all those years ago. Some 15 years after that treaty, the Government is using such measures as the whip to usher in the migration pact, which will bring about a life-altering situation for the Irish people, without resort to either judicial scrutiny or another referendum so that the people can vote on it.

Article 29.4.7° of our Constitution authorises the Oireachtas to vote on this measure under Protocol No. 21. It does not absolve any Member of the Oireachtas from their fiduciary duty or indeed moral responsibility to the people of Ireland to ensure that any and all such measures which affect the people will have had the benefit of judicial scrutiny and-or an opportunity to vote in a referendum on this issue. I believe it is morally reprehensible and negligent of Members of the House to vote on this pact in such circumstances and by so doing, deny the opportunity to the Irish people to have the constitutionality of this pact tested by the courts.

This is not what the Irish people voted for in the context of the Lisbon Treaty by a long shot. This pact will involve the biggest transfer of our sovereignty in the history of our State. To give that away in a simple vote without scrutiny or consideration of the constitutional implications will go down in the history of the State as the greatest ever betrayal of the Irish people by their own Members of Parliament. If this EU migration pact is voted in and we opt into this pact, we can never opt out thereafter because the necessitated obligations under Article 29.4.6° of our Constitution will apply and these measures can never be tested by the courts, and our fate is set.

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