Terry Leyden (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Ms Harkin. I will be unable to wait to hear her response as there is to be an important meeting of the Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party at 1 p.m. Senator Paschal Mooney will remain to hear the rest of the debate.

Ms Harkin does an excellent job as a MEP for the western region. Like her other MEP colleagues for the region, she is well known and seen as active and being involved in campaigns that affect people directly. I am delighted that she is a member of the European Liberal, Democratic and Reform Party, ELDR. We share that party and I am vice president of the group at the Council of Europe.

I regret the proposed loss of a European Parliament seat for Ireland, from 12 seats to 11.

The Government should veto this. We voted in favour of Croatia joining and supported that move and now we are losing one MEP. If Turkey joins next, will we be down to six MEPs, just like Malta? It is a very serious issue. Ireland is the most peripheral region in the European Union and we are down to 11 seats. Ms Harkin might indicate the configuration. For example, will County Meath be included? This is very serious in terms of representation of a region like the west of Ireland.

We were conned under the Lisbon treaty which stated there would be delegation of responsibility to parliaments. The Dáil and the Seanad are the two Houses of the Oireachtas; committees cannot do what we can do in the Houses. So far as I know, there has been no objection to legislation being forwarded from the European Union to Ireland, which is very disappointing.

The other issue which came up was that this was the only country of the 27 member states to see eel fishing being banned for 90 years. It was the craziest decision ever made in this Parliament, by the Government of the time, in particular the Green Party Minister, Mr. Eamon Ryan, and the others who went along with it. We have thrown away that industry, while Northern Ireland has retained it.

A directive was discussed in the House recently in regard to the below cost selling of cigarettes brought forward by the Minister for Health who purports to want to have smoking banned in cars. The tobacco lobby is very strong in Europe.

These measures are slipping through without the scrutiny Ms Harkin would like to see in this House. I would like to see liaison between this House and Ms Harkin and her colleagues in the European Parliament. That would be real democracy - having this and the other House, with our MEPs, discussing legislation and directives from the European Parliament. Senator John Kelly has made a valiant effort to solve the problem of wind turbines, a very important issue, as they have destroyed lives and will destroy more.