Ms Nessa Childers:

I am thankful for the opportunity to address the Seanad today. I will speak about EU public health policy, referring to various items of legislation we have worked on over the past four years. I will argue that we need a reformed, but not abolished, Seanad. The Seanad should have a role in scrutinising and debating EU policy as it goes through committee stages in the European Parliament and the Council of Europe.

I will first address the work of the Parliament. My first impression of being an Irish MEP was that it was not unlike living on Pluto, far away from but circling around the sun - the sun in this case being the Irish political system, where it appears many Deputies and Senators are blissfully unaware of or unconcerned about the work of the European Parliament. This is worrying, as the European Parliament now has extensive legislative, budgetary and supervisory powers. With regard to virtually all EU policy issues, it is an equal co-legislator with national governments. When I am out and about in the constituency, however, I realise people are very aware of the role of the European Parliament and want to engage with me and discuss our work.

Let me put all this in a practical light. I am a member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, ENVI, and a substitute member of the Committee on Culture and Education. With a background of more than 20 years as a mental health professional, I have naturally focused a lot on public health issues. Since 2009, I have been co-chair of the European Parliament's mental health, well-being and brain disorder interest group, which brings together MEPs, Commission officials, academics and patient groups to work together on mental health issues such as depression, suicide and alcoholism. Since early 2012, I have been co-chair of the European Parliament's group MEPs Against Cancer. This involves MEPs, patients and industry groups examining the way in which the European Union can tackle issues such as breast, lung, prostate and cervical cancers. These interest groups represent a valuable use of our time. We organise round-table discussions that are held in an unpressurised environment and with plenty of time for people to debate current issues. This helps to inform us and educate us in our decision-making.

As the Seanad is aware, the European Parliament's legislative work is structured around the committee system, in which the emphasis is on achieving compromise and agreement. The committee system is interesting for Irish parliamentarians as it allows individual MEPs to have actual influence in shaping new legislation. For example, on the environment committee, I have helped to shape EU policy on many topics, such as Alzheimer's disease, disabilities, obesity, HIV–AIDS and food labelling. In the European Parliament, any MEP can submit legislative amendments. Once one wins support for them, they may be passed in plenary session. If the Parliament then fights for those amendments, they can become law for over 500 million EU citizens. I have had the pleasure of having my amendments to the 2012 food labelling regulation become EU law, for example.

It is important to understand, for all kinds of reasons, that MEPs exercise their mandate independently. They cannot be bound by any instructions or receive a binding mandate. This, in effect, means there can be no national party whip for MEPs as regards voting on European legislation. As MEPs do not vote in the Oireachtas, there is no whip for us in the national parliament either. The reason for an independent mandate is quite important. It is to ensure we are not bound by possible national party instructions to follow solely national interests. MEPs are elected to represent their constituents directly in the European Parliament and they vote on European legislation that affects the Union as a whole.

MEPs organise into political groups that reflect their political philosophies. I am a member of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists & Democrats and the Irish Labour Party while representing the interests of my constituents. At present, I have a voting record of 90% with my political group. Unfortunately, the positions adopted are not always consistent with those of the Irish Government, including those of both Fine Gael and Labour Party members. This is the case generally in the European Parliament. The cohesion of the groups is notable despite the absence of a whip system. The Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists & Democrats has voting cohesion among its members of approximately 90%.

That is interesting and we should think about the implications of the absence of the whip system.

In 2012, I was a co-author of new EU legislation on the pricing system for medicines in Europe, the transparency in medicines pricing directive. That will affect Irish patients in terms of how and at what price they can access vital medicines. Hopefully, the legislation will be concluded next October. It will also affect how quickly generic medicines enter the market. Other issues I work on are the medical devices directive and clinical trials regulation. A particular interest for me at present is the revision of the tobacco products directive. I believe this legislation is critical and I am anxious that the strongest possible tobacco control is agreed. Personally, I would have it banned if possible. With non-governmental organisations and patient groups in Brussels I have campaigned and pressed for strong anti-tobacco legislation, and the European Commission finally proposed this long-awaited directive before Christmas. A total of 700,000 people die prematurely in the European Union due to tobacco-related causes, yet across Europe teenagers start smoking at a very early age. Tobacco puts a heavy burden on governments and society generally. Non-smokers also pay for the costs of smoking, primarily in the form of higher health insurance and medical costs related to second-hand smoke, leading to higher taxes and higher prices for health care products and services.

The new legislation seeks to ensure that tobacco products look and taste like tobacco. The draft directive bans all characterising flavourings, as they are termed. Examples of these include chocolate, fruit flavours and menthol. It also deals with labelling and packaging, with picture and text warnings to cover 75% of all cigarette and roll-your-own packets. Packaging is one of the last places in which the tobacco industry can market its products. This marketing must be prevented and curtailed as much as possible. Although the directive is widely welcomed, MEPs and member states must be vigilant against the massive negative industry lobbying campaign, which will now move out of the shadows and try to delay, block and defeat this legislation. We know the industry lobbied specifically on tax and intellectual property grounds against the new EU law.

I will speak a little about my work on lobbying and transparency, particularly with regard to this directive. Lobbying is reasonable and legal. It contributes to good legislative decision making, but only when it is fully transparent. For that reason I was disappointed to learn that two Government Departments did not disclose meetings with the tobacco industry, breaking the terms of the World Health Organisation, WHO, treaty of which Ireland is a signatory. Working together with Deputy Kevin Humphreys, we discovered that officials working for the Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, and the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Bruton, met with the tobacco industry on a number of occasions last year without the transparency required under the world tobacco treaty ratified by Ireland in 2004. They have met, for example, with John Player and Philip Morris International, and Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation officials have met with Japan Tobacco International. These meetings happened despite a warning last May from the Minister for Health, Deputy James Reilly, to his Cabinet colleagues of their obligations under the WHO treaty. We need to know more about how and when lobbying of governments has occurred.

I have worked on these issues from very early in my term in Brussels. We are working towards a transparent system. Brussels is the lobbying capital of the world, apart from Washington DC. There are possibly 22,000 lobbyists in Brussels alone. We need a culture of responsibility and legislative efforts to monitor the lobbying sector. Brussels is moving in the right direction. There is a register of lobbyists, but it is not mandatory. The two biggest Irish lobbyists, the Irish Farmers' Association, IFA, and the Irish Business and Employers' Confederation, IBEC, for example, have still not registered. Many public representatives, myself included, publicly declare when we have met with industry representatives and my diary includes all meetings with NGOs, industry representatives and community groups. My website provides great detail about my pay, expenses, staff and other aspects of my political life which the public might like to know. There must be more transparency about lobbying in Ireland. I am pleased that the register of lobbyists legislation will be published by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, very soon. It is a good start.

I will now discuss my thoughts on the Seanad with regard to EU legislation. I would like to see a strong role for a reformed Seanad in debating the scope and depth of EU policy, with Irish MEPs playing an equal part in those discussions and reflecting the passage of legislation through the institutions of the EU and the co-decision-making process. The Lisbon treaty facilitates this function of oversight and it should feature strongly in a reformed Seanad. Senators could communicate legislation of interest to councillors and work with the new regional authorities. They could offer this as a service to local elected representatives, who usually have to explain and deal with the effects of EU law being implemented in their local areas. MEPs could also attend the relevant Dáil committees where EU legislation can be discussed. MEPs from some other countries have that right. This is important, as parliamentarians need to ask Ministers what their stance is in advance of voting on new laws when they sit on the Council of the European Union. New roles and responsibilities would require a strong secretariat to make them worthwhile.

In the current economic situation any argument for increasing the Seanad budget would be difficult to make, but one of the dangers of the economic recession and the austerity agenda is that confidence in democracy is damaged. This has been identified by the European Parliament, which strongly cautions against excessive cuts. In Ireland, the most vulnerable and the lower paid carry the bulk of the cutbacks. We need to ask why this is happening. We must also examine how we can stop democracy from being damaged. How often have we seen critical decisions forced through both Houses, without proper debate, under the excuse of emergency or time constraints? To have real impact, actions on lobbying and Seanad reform require greater changes in how we make decisions in this country. The secretive and closed budget-making system, for example, does a disservice to the country and is a disservice to politicians. Government Deputies and Senators are expected to defend a budget with only a few hours' notice of the content and the figures. Taking one for the team rather than questioning poor policy is viewed as a badge of honour and deemed worthy of reward. Opposition Deputies and Senators have no opportunity to have an input into the process. We need long-term budgeting that is agreed in open session through a committee system that allows the full involvement of elected representatives and public scrutiny. Unfortunately, transparency in decision making is getting more opaque. The whip and guillotine silence Deputies and Senators on both sides of the Houses and push through legislation without oversight. We need reform or we will continue to face unequal, unfair and often poorly thought out policies. Due to the new EU governance legislation, the Irish budget will become more transparent. It will be open to and peer reviewed by our neighbours. It is a pity some of the budgets of the former Minister for Finance, Mr. McCreevy, were not peer reviewed, or indeed many other budgets.

I will not speak any further but will just remind Senators about the living on Pluto metaphor. In many respects, Brussels is the real sun around which member states are increasingly rotating. Some of that is problematic for Ireland because of the influence of troikas which are not accountable to anybody, including the European Parliament. We must look at where we are placed in that solar system of public representation. It has always been my opinion that the Seanad should not be abolished. There are great dangers in that. However, I believe it will happen, unfortunately.