Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I always enjoy listening to Senator Higgins. I recognise how passionate she is about this particular topic.

As I believe this is her first time here since the Minister of State assumed responsibility for European Union affairs, I will take this opportunity to note the Fine Gael Party is exceptionally proud of her and she has already hit the ground running in her new role. This is an extremely important ministry and is one the most important. I agree with the Taoiseach when he stated we are not a country on the periphery of Europe but one that is at the centre of the world. Ireland is really in the cockpit of Europe in terms of driving European policy.

I was fortunate to be in Brussels on Monday and Tuesday of this week where I attended a meeting of the joint parliamentary scrutiny group on Europol. The group was established through the Lisbon treaty to oversee Europol. The Lisbon treaty was signed a number of years ago and while the group was initiated in 2011, it is only coming to fruition now in terms of putting in place procedures, protocols, standing orders, rules and regulations. I attended the group meeting as a representative of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice and Equality and the Minister of State will be pleased to know we tabled a significant number of amendments to the protocols that were discussed and debated. I was the only representative of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice and Equality because last Tuesday was budget day and none of my Dáil colleagues were in a position to travel to Brussels. Therefore, I had to move all of the amendments on behalf of the committee and the Irish Parliament. We succeeded in getting all of our amendments over the line except one that wanted all European languages, in that we sought to have the deliberations at the plenary sessions of the joint scrutiny group to be translated in all languages. At the meeting I spoke as Gaeilge but there was nobody in the interpretation centre in Brussels to translate what I said. I made the point more than anything else.