John Dardis (Progressive Democrats)

There is not a democratic deficit; there is a different institutional way of doing things in Europe. The democratic system operates within the fact that the Commission proposes the legislation. There are some powers of initiation for the parliament. The Council, which represents the people of the Union, disposes; the parliament expresses its view and in the case of the budget it can veto. There is a democratic balance in the system although this has been somewhat eroded by the fact that it is very convenient for Ministers – not just in this country but universally in the Union – to come home and say that all the good news was their doing and all the bad news emanated from the faceless bureaucrats in Brussels.

That is part of the reason for the widespread feeling that there is a democratic deficit. There is a deficit in so far as we have not reviewed European matters to the extent we should and we have not engaged either the media or the people on European matters. We do not have to reinvent the wheel, as there are models available like the Finnish process, which comes back to accountability. Before a Minister goes to a Council meeting at European level, he or she must come before a committee of the Finnish Parliament and explain what he or she is dealing with at the meeting. A direction is given by the Parliament to the Minister as to how to deal with the issue and the Minister must report back on returning home. That is a degree of accountability a million miles away from our system but it would bear examination.

The next question relates to who does the work. I have quoted what Deputy O'Keeffe's committee had to say about the Seanad's role. I was a member of the committee chaired by Deputy Lenihan, which had similar views and there is also the Joint Committee on European Affairs. I am glad that we have finally recognised the importance of these matters by the appointment of Deputy Roche as Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs. We should have such an appointment a long time ago, as it would be unusual for any member state not to have a Minister dealing with European affairs.