Dáil debates

Wednesday, 10 May 2006

Rapporteur of Joint Committee on European Affairs: Statement.

 

6:00 pm

Photo of Ruairi QuinnRuairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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For those not familiar with the term, the rapporteur is the person charged by his peer group to write a report of the day's proceedings. I will undertake that responsibility and circulate the report in due time. I associate myself with the words of thanks and appreciation.

I offer the House some brief personal assessments of the day. The presence of the Commissioner in this Chamber, detached from either Opposition or Government, answering questions from both sides, was a major political innovation in which we should take some pride. Her personality and her engagement with the issue of the reality of decline in farming, is to be celebrated. She dealt more with the broader agricultural issues than the peculiarities of Mallow and the beet factory and we could have had much more time with her. I suggest that, in future, questions should be grouped three together. I doubt whether the Minister for Agriculture and Food, Deputy Coughlan, needed to speak for 20 minutes today as she has other occasions to make a speech. I agree with other speakers that it was a courtesy to the Minister that she should speak, but she can speak anytime in this House whereas we will not have a Commissioner in the House for some time. Changes in the procedure of this House will only be by agreement so this is not a party or partisan issue but rather an issue of Oireachtas democratisation.

It became clear during the debates on the European Constitution and on the treaty that the relationship between national parliaments and the European institutions is uneven and unequal and the balance needs to be re-established. One way to re-establish that relationship or to put it on a new level is to bring players from the European Commission who have the sole right of legislative initiative within our system, into this Chamber and ask them to explain their decisions.

Deputy Hayes cited the example of the directive on veterinary practices. The problems related to administration, bureaucratisation, specialisation, and the advantage given to the veterinary profession, did not originate in Brussels. They were compounded in the Department of Agriculture and Food because that Department along with the veterinary profession saw an empty train they could jump on and earn more fees by charging farmers to administer something which farmers used to do themselves. The committee has had this debate. Irrespective of what Administration is in office, every Department will tend to use legislation coming from the European Union to freeload onto it extra carriages that happen to suit a domestic agenda and then we blame the European Union for doing it. It would be timely to look at what happened in the Department of Agriculture and Food in the context of that example.

I will circulate a report which will be signed off by the committee. We can then give it to the Ceann Comhairle so he and his officials can bring our experience of this shared exchange to the assembly of Speakers of the 25 member states to show them how it was done in Ireland. I am delighted to acknowledge the presence in the Chamber of the Government Chief Whip, whose help in this project was particularly constructive. If this experiment works, I propose that the House holds a Europe day or days in every one of the three sessions and that this would become part of the normal business of the House.