I will now try to give Senators a brief idea of the kind of work MEPs do. It may sound like a repetition of what Senators do as part of their daily work. I made a list of items on which I have spoken in the past week. My colleagues in the European Parliament are amazed at the amount of issues with which Irish politicians are expected to deal. Some years ago I had, for a brief time, a German researcher working with me in Brussels. After about three weeks he expressed his disbelief at the volume of work created in the office. He told me that all he had to do when working for a German colleague was to recycle the odd article for various magazines.

The type of intimacy that we, as Irish parliamentarians, have with our electorate is almost unknown in many other countries. Within the European Parliament some Members are elected from national list systems. We may think we have a problem making our work known here but that does not matter greatly in many other countries where one's party decides one's place on the list. The party also decides if one is not on the list. The situation has often arisen where a Member who has been active in the Parliament – the reason he was elected to it in the first instance – is not put on the list the next time round because he did not spend enough time at home doing whatever was required to get him included on it.

In the past three days I have spoken at six conferences on diabetes – it was diabetes week in the Parliament and I have done a great deal of work in that area. Last Sunday, with the Dublin Simon Community, I viewed services for homeless people. I promised the organisation I would inform the House that its main concern is not the work initially associated with it, but that of moving people on to permanent housing. That is a really big issue for them. I have dealt with several cases of child abduction. I have spoken to the pharmaceutical industry about three pieces of legislation being introduced. I have also spoken to various people concerned about the recognition of professional qualifications. I have examined food law and been lobbied by a very well known company in this country which is being dragged in front of the District Court, as we would put it, for selling a jar of capers that is not labelled in at least three different languages, one of which must be English or Irish. I will refer to that area later, simply because, I regret to say, that whenever something silly arises or something goes wrong, it has been customary and really useful to be able to blame Europe. We are certainly blamed very regularly.

Several people, including publishers and musical rights people, have contacted me about legislation going through the Parliament. Debt cancellation is another issue, as is stem cell research. One thing that must be recognised when we are working on legislation in the European Parliament is that we can have a very large, lumpy piece of legislation, with a resolution drafted from the body of the report. Many issues may be dealt with in that report, but certain lobby groups will trawl through legislation to see if there is something they can get their teeth into or that is against their opinions. I felt a little sorry for some Members, since I am sure they experience this more than I, because as I was crossing the road to come here, a little old lady raced across screaming, "You are Mary Banotti, are you not?" and when I said I was she said, "You voted for gays and lesbians, you filthy pig." I thought, "Oh dear", and I hope Senators do not have to face that too much. They should beware of her. I think she is outside the door with a couple of barricades to catch Members on their way out.

In 1984, the Irish, according to various studies, had the lowest level of environmental awareness in Europe. I do not take any particular credit, but I tried to raise many of the issues that have since become very much part of the country's lingua franca. By the time of the next election in 1989, things had begun to change, largely because the schools had begun to teach children about the environment. Our low level of environmental awareness was due mainly to our being a non-industrial country not subject to the same kind of cross-border environmental disasters, such as the pollution of the Rhine and European air pollution, though there was, of course, pollution here. I emphasise that the reason we have got to grips with environmental issues in this country is European legislation. It was only because it became absolutely de rigueur for us to implement many of those European directives that we began to wake up and see that we needed to do something on the issue.

I understand I am to take questions when I finish, but I would like to talk to Senators a little about the issue of child abduction. It gets a great deal of tabloid press coverage, but it is quite a serious issue in our own country. On average, there are about 100 child abduction cases in Ireland every year. The interesting thing is that they are almost equally divided between children abducted into and abducted out of the country. The legislation that governs child abduction is known as The Hague Convention of 25 October 1980 on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. It is private international law, one of many pieces of The Hague Convention legislation. It is based on an agreement made by over 63 countries to accept a basic set of rules on child abduction. The central issue in the legislation is that the custody of a child be decided in the country where the child habitually resides. If we allowed children being taken from other countries to come home here, we could not expect them to send us back our children when they are taken elsewhere. That is the basic reasoning behind the legislation.

In the seven years I have worked on the issue, a great many things have changed culturally. One of the most significant is the issue of fathers' rights. Fathers' access and interest in maintaining contact with their children in the event of a relationship breaking down has become really significant, which I greatly welcome. Another issue is that more and more people are marrying or having children across national borders, and many of them are here, since many Irish people travel abroad. I call some of my cases the holiday romance cases. One goes off to somewhere lovely and sunny where the beaches are white and someone perfectly beautiful with big, brown eyes and lots of lovely hair comes up, and one falls in love. As we all know, love takes a great deal of working on, and within two or three years things are very often beginning to happen. I can see that many of the Senators realise that. As a result, the mother generally decides that she does not like the man any more. The reasons she fell in love with the man initially, such as him having a great deal of time to lie on the beach and court her, become a slightly different matter when one has two children and there is no money coming in. That is often when young mothers decide to go home to their own mothers. When they telephone me after they have arrived home, they are surprised when I say they have to return to where they came from with the child. I have to explain to them that, under international law, they have to go back. They may be able to return home again with the child, with the agreement of the father, but this may not be possible. Much more public discussion is required about this matter. Many young people who marry outside their own culture cannot understand why they cannot return to this country with their children.

We will have to come to terms with the fact that certain countries have not signed The Hague Convention. When children reach the age of seven or eight, the rights of both parents may be quite different in religious courts in such countries. The imam of one of the mosques in Dublin spoke at a conference I organised in Dublin for the legal profession. The imam, who was a very nice man, argued that people from other countries living in Ireland should be required to obey Irish law. I am not sure that his belief is very prevalent when it comes to the rearing of children. I have discovered that trouble begins to appear around the time when children in our culture make their first holy communion.

I have to confess that I think this problem will become even bigger. That is not meant even as a mildly racist comment – I simply wish to recognise the reality that we may be dealing with these problems far more often. The President of the European Parliament decided to appoint a mediator in 1994 after hundreds of women from Belgium and France walked across Europe to the European Parliament to bring to the President's attention the fact that hundreds of children were removed from these jurisdictions, mainly to north Africa. The women could not see their children. It was decided at that time that the problem needed to be examined and addressed in the best way possible. We needed to inform ourselves, as best we could, about the issues of concern.

I have reached the end of my allotted time. I will be happy to answer questions. I reiterate that I am delighted to be here. It has been a real privilege to address the House. I thank Senators for organising this debate.

I am a member of the Committee on Health and Children. Some days ago an innocuous directive was introduced stating that certain medical devices were acceptable. A few weeks beforehand, I read in a medical journal about medical devices that, unfortunately, had been found to promote infection. How can we, as a committee, possibly state that we suppose this is all right? Has Ms Banotti any comments on how we could try to have better research support when considering directives? Directives come in thick and fast, especially to some committees, and we do not want to sign off on them unless we are satisfied.

A recent directive stated that chillis must not be polluted with Sudan red. I did not know whether Sudan red was good for one or whether chillis should contain it. Such directives come before us and we have a difficult time trying to sign off on them. What recommendations can Ms Banotti make as to how we can get more support?

My question arises from the changes in powers and scope for the European Parliament envisaged under the convention, which I hope will take place. The problem, as EM Forster said, is a case of, "Only connect". How will a smaller number of MEPs connect with a constituency in Ireland and cover all the issues? Does Ms Banotti see any utility in their being consistent debates on European issues in this Chamber that would provide MEPs with some sort of sounding board for their activities?

There are representatives of the applicant countries in the European Parliament in an observer capacity. They do not seem to be making a huge amount of connection with the Parliament. A Latvian representative wrote an article which the lads back home did not like too well. They suddenly decided that they would take the representative back to Latvia as a result. We are now facing a constitutional issue because we will fight tooth and nail over this. While one may not like or agree with what somebody is saying, one would die for their right to say it. We are already encountering interesting issues such as this where a member of a democratic institution, in which members are used to having disagreements, can be replaced by someone who is more in line with thinking in his or her parliament back home. The outcome of this case will be interesting.

I have noticed the new members from the accession countries are relatively old, which suggests they were politically active during the years when their countries were under a totalitarian regime. Without wishing to make a party political point, it is also interesting to note how conservative they are.

The European Parliament will be very different after enlargement and will take time to settle down. I paid some interesting visits to the accession countries, including, for example, Poland which I visited for the first time last September when we examined a number of issues. I also met a very charismatic politician, Mr. Andrzej Lepper, the Jean-Marie Le Pen of Poland, who attached himself to a particular political view as soon as he entered the European Parliament. We do not have an equivalent to Mr. Lepper or Monsieur Le Pen. Some of these politicians whose views appal one are extremely charismatic and speak excellently. I am afraid that having learned how to communicate so effectively, their point of view will gain precedence in their home countries.

Senator Brian Hayes asked about the powers of the European Parliament, which I have observed since being elected to it. I remember attending committee meetings where we sat around discussing at inordinate length legislation over which we had no influence – it made us feel good to do so. One would receive a list of up to 400 amendments proposing to change all sorts of minor details such as semi-colons. At the end of the process, one ended up with what I used to describe as a political string vest in that the legislation was full of holes and one did not know for what one was voting.

By passing the referendum on the Single European Act, boredom inducing legislation of such staggering complexity that it is little wonder nobody understood it, we introduced a system which has made the lives of MEPs considerably easier. For example, qualified majority voting was introduced for various issues, which meant that if we did not achieve a qualified majority – about 334 votes – the legislation in question would not be passed. As a result, MEPs had to get serious and make up their minds on whether they wanted legislation to be passed. As we had to stop messing around with useless, ego-boosting amendments, it perked us up considerably.

The powers of the European Parliament have increased exponentially since the enactment of the Single European Act and it has become a much more organised and professional parliament. Every step has been taken slowly and carefully. Nothing came easily or without a fight because the Council and Commission are not anxious to cede power.

The document produced by the Convention, which affects all of us regardless of what we are working on, is widely regarded as significant and brave and I am happy to support it. All legislation in the European Parliament is passed by consensus. Essentially, it is a consensus parliament, which means one does not often have wonderful days such as yesterday's sitting of the Dáil. We were delighted with Mr. Berlusconi's appearance in the European Parliament because he gave us a really good row on the floor of the Chamber, of which there are not too many. Regardless of their views on Mr. Berlusconi, all MEPs enjoyed his visit. The European Parliament does not have the same cut and thrust one finds in national parliaments.

MEPs do their work primarily in committee, which is where the real political debate takes place, particularly on major issues affecting all member states such as immigration and asylum. I confess that immigration was minimal when we first started to consider legislation on issues of this nature, to the extent that if one saw a foreigner who was not on holiday, one wondered what he or she was doing here. I felt slightly uncomfortable, therefore, taking a political position on asylum and immigration issues because many of my colleagues were from countries into which hundreds of thousands of immigrants and asylum seekers were crossing. They faced completely different circumstances from Irish MEPs. The position regarding immigration has now dramatically changed. It used to be easy when one did not have to deal with this kind of issues in the sense that, as with all legislation, it is fine provided one does not have to implement it oneself.

The impact of immigration and asylum differs among the member states. Austria, for example, a small country which borders the accession countries is the first stop for a significant number of people entering the European Union from eastern Europe. For this reason, it is a massive political issue in the country and, given the numbers involved, an important economic question also.

Apropos of committees, Senator Henry is correct that it is difficult for a small country to have a good spread of MEPs across committees. Many of the countries with electoral systems based on lists of candidates include on their list a competent man or woman in each field, for instance, education, transport and economics, to ensure they have someone elected who is politically safe and knows what he or she is talking about. They can then be appointed on the various committees. This is not the case in smaller countries but, nevertheless, Irish MEPs are much better spread around the committees than they were in the past. We work closely together and the various parties do not attack each other politically. If issues of particular concern and interest to Ireland arise, most of us vote along the same lines. We do not try to trip each other up on issues, which is important. I enjoy this and like the idea that one can be friends with people from other political parties while also having differences.

On Senator Ryan's question on the perspective on Ireland in the European Parliament, it was obvious when I entered the Parliament that our officials were brilliant at corridor networking. Ireland was too small to be considered a danger by other countries and we were universally liked because we were cute and nice to everybody and did not take strong political positions on anything. Other nationalities enjoyed our company and, being Irish, we used and continue to use this to our maximum advantage. The view of Ireland was, therefore, that the people were nice – a bit of gas – and the country was lovely and green.

Things began to change, however, when our economy made such a spectacular turnaround. At that point, people were pleased for us in the same way as a mother is pleased for a child who has just attained good results in school exams. At the same time, we could no longer play the role of being a poor, small island which could ask for money and keep quiet. We had to recognise that we had moved into a different league. Colleagues from other countries, particularly applicant countries, are interested in talking to us about how we did it. Senators will notice that a huge number of Irish consultants work in many of these countries, advising them on how we did it and how they can do it. We have had to grow up and, in that context, things have changed slightly. However, it is not unpleasant.

Everybody is aware of the cut and thrust that was involved in getting the final document from the convention. Some will jump up and down and find something wrong with it; indeed, everybody will find something wrong with it. However, it is important that it comes into force, if only for practical reasons. Several Senators were kind enough to refer to the amount of legislation I have been involved with in the last 19 years. There have been massive amounts of legislation, some of it so technical that I have regularly asked myself how a bunch of politicians, who know nothing about some of these highly technical matters, can possibly deal with it.

I remember the first time I went to the environment and consumer protection committee. Somebody told me I was in charge of the chocolate directive. I replied that the more than 40,000 people who sent me to Brussels did not send me there to talk about chocolate. I was there to change the world. I remember standing there and wondering what I should do with it.

I have always been grateful for the chocolate directive which, incidentally, still has not been solved. We dealt with it through a labelling device which would show how much cocoa butter was in a bar of chocolate and left it at that. The issue ran for a long time but it was a great political learning process for me. What confuses people is how an issue in which one has an interest or about which one has a concern can be affected by other issues, be they economic, consumer protection, environmental or so forth. One needs to keep a careful eye on such things and that is what we tried to do.

No matter how important or complex the legislation, the public understanding of it is generally brought down to the most simple issue or to the one thing that will get members of the public outside the gates of parliament abusing politicians. It generally has nothing to do with the legislation as a whole. The children in the schools love my chocolate story and I talk to them about it because they are extremely interested in chocolate. However, I also hope it is a context to explain these things. I am sure Senators find, in the course of their work, that where a political issue is controversial, most people will only confront them about one part or aspect of it.

The issue of stem cell research is a topical example. It is a controversial and anguishing issue. I heard Deputy Gay Mitchell speaking on the radio about it this morning. He made the justifiable point that it was not discussed in the Committee on European Affairs. He is right to be annoyed about it. I suppose I can be braver in what I say because I am not running again for election but when dealing with issues such as this, I have suffered as a politician over the years from the type of black and white debates they always generate.

One of the most moving moments I experienced in the past year in the European Parliament involved a colleague I have known for many years, Nicholas Bethell, a distinguished Member of the European Parliament. A similar type of debate on this issue was taking place within my political group and everybody was up on their high horse, taking the high moral ground on this and that. Nicholas Bethell put his hand up. He is dying of Parkinson's disease and left the parliament about a month ago. He spoke quietly and calmly about having advanced Parkinson's disease. He said his father had died from Parkinson's disease and that his eight year old son was just as likely to get this dreadful disease, given the genetic issues involved. He said he was leaving the Parliament, but he wanted people to think hard when trying to simplify such issues. Having listened to some of the debate, I have decided to vote in favour of it in memory of my mother and of him. I have great respect for people with other points of view. However, I will vote for it because I believe some good can come from it.