Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Question 378: To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs the reason that the treaty amending the treaties establishing the European Communities and protocol (details supplied) was only laid before the Houses of Oireachtas in September 2010, more than 25 years after it had come into force; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35909/10]

Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context

Article 29.5 of the Constitution requires that international agreements to which the State becomes a party, with the exception of agreements of a "technical and administrative character", be laid before Dáil Éireann. The policy of my Department is that all agreements, including those of a technical or administrative character, should be laid before Dáil Éireann as a matter of best practice and in the interest of transparency. This laying procedure is distinct and separate from the requirement in Article 29.5.2 that agreements whose terms impose a charge on public funds be approved by the Dáil before the State may become party thereto.

The obligation in the Constitution to lay all agreements that enter into force for the State before Dáil Éireann is primarily for the purpose of providing information to the Dáil both as to the fact that the State has become party to a particular agreement and as to the terms of the agreement in question. The Constitution does not specify a timeframe in which agreements must be laid, although it is desirable that they be laid promptly. However, a backlog of international agreements for laying before the Dáil built up over the years, largely due to a lack of resources. For this reason, it was decided not to prioritise agreements about which information was already widely available. EU treaties, including the Treaty amending, with regard to Greenland, the Treaties establishing the European Communities, were not given priority, as information on these treaties was already well known to the Dáil and accessible. Prior to its ratification, the text of the Greenland Treaty had been sent to the Oireachtas library and had been the subject of debate in the Dáil during the passage of European Communities (Amendment) Act 1985, which gave effect in Irish law to the Treaty.

In recent years the Department has sought to ensure that all international agreements that have entered into force for the State since 1937 are identified and laid before the Dáil in a timely manner. Currently, the Department seeks to lay all international agreements before the end of the calendar year following the year in which they enter into force for the State. On 31 January 2006, the then Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Dermot Ahern, informed the Dáil, in reply to a parliamentary question (3159/06), of plans to identify and lay before the Dáil all international agreements to which the State had become party since 1937. To date, some 317 such agreements dating from as far back as 1948 have been identified. Of these, 65 were laid before the Dáil in 2006, 217 in 2007, 10 in 2008, 19 in 2009 and 6 in 2010.

I am confident that the vast majority of international agreements which entered into force since 1937 have now been laid before the Dáil, but it is possible that a small number of further agreements will be identified and any such agreements will be laid before the Dáil in due course. Once international agreements are laid before the Dáil they are made publicly available on my Department's website, in the electronic Irish Treaty Series.