Rónán Mullen (Independent)

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I am glad to have an opportunity to address the House on this Bill, which deals with an important topic. I have always appreciated the importance of the European Union to and for Ireland. We must have a genuine sense of gratitude for how the Union has functioned on behalf of all of us. I refer, for example, to the protections of the Common Market, environmental protection measures and certain aspects of the Union's employment legislation. I believe that those who have represented Ireland at certain international fora, including EU negotiations, have always acted in the best interests of this country and in accordance with their own lights. They have made a genuine effort to seek to advance the good of this country, even if they might not always have been right, focused on the right things, sufficiently well equipped or had a sufficient breadth of knowledge of the social dimension of certain issues. There has been a tendency to focus unduly on economic issues, while forgetting that many other cultural issues are also important. By failing to address such issues in time, we may have led some people to form the opinion that Ireland's relationship with the EU had evolved in a manner that could not but be hostile to Ireland's right to determine certain sensitive issues for itself.

I have always strongly believed in the right of the Oireachtas to submit important questions to the judgment of the people and, if necessary, to resubmit certain questions to them. I emphasise, without prejudice to the question of whether the Lisbon treaty is good for Ireland at this time, that I have never seen the validity of the argument that there is something wrong with putting a referendum to the people for a second time. Our Constitution envisages and provides for a delicate balance in this regard. While certain matters have to be submitted to the people for their final determination, the right to submit such matters to them is clearly vested in the Oireachtas. There is a reason we do not provide for names or signatures to be collected so that a certain issue is put to the people. Democracy is more subtle than it is sometimes imagined to be. If it functions properly, it leaves certain decisions clearly in the hands of elected representatives. The question of what should be submitted to the people in a referendum is a good example of something that should continue to be decided on by elected representatives. If the people are unhappy with that, they can register their displeasure in an election context. Therefore, I have no problem with the Government's decision to refer this proposal to the people once more and I have no problem with the Bill before the House. Negotiations have taken place and certain issues have been clarified. Time will tell whether that has been done to the satisfaction of voters. The business of submitting this proposal to the people for their scrutiny and judgment must be done once more.

I have never had a problem with accepting that EU agreements or guarantees, such as those that were obtained at the December conclusions and again last month, enjoy a sufficient degree of solemnity and solidity. I do not doubt that they will acquire treaty status in due course. I have always felt that whatever is negotiated has a satisfactory legal grounding. I have always sought to contemplate the question of what exactly is negotiated by way of guarantees. As my colleagues will know, I have focused in particular on social and ethical matters in that context. When I opposed the Lisbon treaty during the last referendum campaign, I repeatedly made the point that, as a result of the evolution of the EU, Ireland is no longer in a position to make its own decisions on certain sensitive social and ethical issues and areas of law. That is a major problem for me and I know it was a major problem for many voters. In that regard, I am glad the Government has moved on from merely talking about abortion and now seems to recognise that certain other traditional values are at issue. A range of social and ethical matters, including the definition of marriage, laws impacting on family life, certain right to life issues, the question of who gets to run education in our society, the right of religious communities to provide education according to their ethos and values, and freedom of conscience issues in relation to religion, have come into play in this context. They have been brought into play to a greater extent since the Union's equality competence started to emerge around the time of the Amsterdam treaty.

The EU has clearly evolved from being a mere economic grouping and is now integrating in many more areas. If we are honest about it, the Union is moving towards something that, in all likelihood, will look like a federal state in the fullness of time. It is beyond dispute that there has been a growth in the EU's areas of competence. It now enjoys competence in areas that have the potential to be very socially sensitive in Ireland. It was in that context that I registered my disquiet and that of many people about the manner in which this country has sleepwalked into that situation. We never had a full debate on where exactly we stood in terms of an ever more united Europe. Members will recall that Albert Reynolds, who no doubt was doing his best for the country, used to speak about the billions of pounds he had obtained for Ireland in the form of Structural Funds. I do not deny that it was an important issue in itself. However, with perhaps one exception - the negotiation of the Maastricht protocol - there was always a failure of the imagination when it came to realising that situations might arise in the future in the light of Europe's growing areas of competence that could compromise Ireland's ability to go its own way on socially sensitive matters, particularly where it might have a more nuanced position or a different ethical outlook on certain issues from other member states.

The Government sought and obtained clarifications for us. I was honoured to be asked to take part in the work of the Joint Committee on Ireland's Future in Europe which was chaired so excellently by my colleague, Senator Paschal Donohoe. I took the opportunity as a member of the committee to give chapter and verse, as I saw it, on the issues of challenge pertaining to social and ethical matters.

These are the issues that will have to be examined in more detail in the run-up to 2 October to see to what extent sufficient guarantees have been obtained so that we may determine whether Ireland can determine its position on social and ethically sensitive issues. I pointed out the need for a constitutional filter that would basically establish quite clearly that Irish constitutional provisions would have primacy where there was conflict with European law in some of these areas I have described. We have certainly had guarantees in relation to certain issues, for example the Irish constitutional provisions as regards life, education and the family. That guarantee applies to the Lisbon treaty. What is less clear is how Irish constitutional provisions might fare in decisions or initiatives of the European institutions which could occur regardless of whether the Lisbon treaty is passed. For example, as we look at the civil partnership legislation coming down the tracks, there will be issues about the right of people in civil partnership situations to enjoy similar rights to those of married couples, as traditionally understood. If we were to seek to nuance that situation and provide that the same rights would not fully apply, would we be already exposed to a situation such as what arose in the Maruko case, where the European Court of Justice basically held that where a member state - in the case of Maruko it was Germany - had already provided for civil partnership in its legislation, then it had to provide the exact same pension rights as those enjoyed by married couples? The Maruko case is an example of how an area of EU competence could impact on an area of non-EU competence, namely, laws in relation to family, definition of marriage etc. That occurred despite the fact that relevant directive was supposed to provide that the financial rights and so on attaching to such partnerships would be matters for the member states.

Those are the types of issues on which people will continue to seek clarity. It can be said beyond dispute that there has been a very positive broadening of the situation so as to recognise that the Irish constitutional provisions in certain areas will be unaffected by the Lisbon treaty. A matter for further debate, however, will be the likelihood or otherwise of further possible interference from European institutions in court decisions deriving from treaties which we have already signed that might, nonetheless, impact on Irish laws in those very areas. I look forward to the debate on that.