Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We are prepared to implement reforms and are working to implement them. I also set out clearly that this House was ideally placed to look at EU legislation, directives and regulations, as they were brought forward. This could be done not when they are approved by the 27 member states but at the initial stages. The European Commission sets out in November its programme for the following 12 months. What do we do about it? The answer is that we leave it all go unchecked and without comment. Then when it is put in place four or five years later, we say we never heard of it previously. We could use this House to deal with the changes that have occurred in the structure of government in the past 30 or 40 years, since we became a member of the European Union. We are not using the House as we should and it is time we started using it to provide for checks and balances in respect of legislation at European level. Let us implement the reforms needed in the next two years.