Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I second the motion. The purpose of the Bill has been explained very well by my colleague Senator MacSharry. It follows from detailed preparatory work undertaken by our colleague, Senator Mark Daly. In our view, there is a need to scrutinise European directives and laws that are transposed into Irish law with very little debate. A total of 97% of European laws transposed into Irish law are neither debated nor scrutinised by either House. The European Union has served this country well since 1972. It has brought peace to European communities and it has allowed us to foster links with our close neighbours by means of bilateral trade agreements. When a population of 500 million people comes together, laws that may work in one country may not work in another. There is a need for scrutiny of legislation. The Lisbon treaty established protocols by which member state parliaments were given additional responsibilities and oversight for the scrutiny of EU directives and laws. Even if a committee on European scrutiny were to meet every Monday and Friday, it would not be possible to scrutinise all the EU directives. I am a member of the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine, which deals every week with EU directives which affect our indigenous industries in the agriculture, food and marine sectors. With the best will in the world, the committee would need to spend a week discussing some of those directives in order to give them due consideration. This is not possible because the timescale does not allow for it. The Government of the day may argue that the directives will not have negative implications, but that is not known for certain. This highlights the need to scrutinise directives.

Laws are being transposed into Irish law and are being implemented in a different way from the way in which they are implemented in other states. For example, without prior consultation, under the 1972 EU birds directive, 5,000 hectares of land in my constituency was transformed overnight from agricultural land to special areas of conservation. Landowners were notified via a letter from the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. Farmers are not allowed to cut grass on such land. Thirty-nine procedural farming activities require prior consent from the Government as a result of the implementation of that directive. Other member states such as Portugal and Spain implemented that directive by consulting the landowners first and if the landowners were not in agreement with the government, areas such as common lands or state lands were considered as alternatives. There is a need for scrutiny but there is also a need for common sense to be applied and a need to consider what the directives actually require and how those requirements are being transposed for use in Ireland. The rights of citizens and landowners must be considered.

The people voted to keep Seanad Éireann but they are seeking reform. If this Bill were to be accepted, Seanad Éireann could play a meaningful role in scrutinising European legislation and European Commissioners could be invited to come to the House. The Seanad should sit at least one extra day a week, either on Mondays or Fridays, with the sole purpose of scrutinising European legislation and in addition to our current role. We cannot allow a situation to develop in which hundreds of European directives are being transposed into Irish law without adequate scrutiny. I mean no disrespect to the European scrutiny committee, whose members carry out a meaningful role. In addition to the work of the committee, Seanad Éireann should also play a role in that regard.

Another piece of European legislation is the bilateral agreement with Canada announced last week. This Parliament has not debated that bilateral agreement. I understand the agreement must be translated into the 28 languages of the EU, after which it can be debated in these Houses. We can only speculate on the agreement because we only know what is in the media reports. Some aspects of the agreement will be beneficial from an Irish point of view but certain elements will be very dangerous for the beef and pork sectors. We should have been given the opportunity to debate that agreement before it was signed. The Canadian Parliament has debated the legislation but member states of the European Union have not.