A special committee specifically set up to scrutinise EU legislation has not been sent a single draft law by any Government department, in what was described as a “disturbing” approach to sovereign democracy.
Cathaoirleach of the Seanad Mark Daly said that despite a commitment from the Taoiseach to allow Senators see EU directives at least six months before they become Irish laws, “not one of them was received”.
Daly claimed the situation effectively means that only about 20 per cent of the laws enacted in every year are properly scrutinised.
Daly’s Committee on EU Scrutiny and Transparency has also raised concerns about a €1.54 million fine that taxpayers’ money will now be used to pay after the Government failed to turn an EU directive on work-life balance into national law on time.
READ MORE
Each year, hundreds of pages worth of EU legislation become Irish law after Government departments add to or amend the legislation. This happens without Senators, TDs and Oireachtas committees being given a chance to examine them, in the way that they would scrutinise domestic law.
Last December, Daly helped set up a new Seanad committee which would be dedicated to examining the draft statutory instruments that would eventually turn EU legislation into Irish law.
Daly told colleagues at a meeting of the committee on Tuesday morning that, despite the fact a number of EU directives are due to be turned into Irish law within the next six months, none have been sent to him.
He read out an extract from a letter from Micheál Martin to the committee, where the Taoiseach said the Government was “committed” to the work of the committee, including sending it draft statutory instruments and other important information “at least six months in advance of transposition deadlines”.
“I regret to inform the committee that we did not receive a single draft EU law that was added to by any Government department. Now, the fact that they will meet EU deadlines but not meet decisions of the Irish Government, the Irish Cabinet and the Taoiseach, is somewhat disturbing in terms of the democratic oversight that this committee has a mandate for,” Daly said.
“Irish citizens are entitled to see the laws that are being made on their behalf, to question those laws. And the practice whereby they are put in front of Ministers’ desks with weeks to go to the deadline has resulted in Irish taxpayers, first of all, paying fines in some instances because of the late enactment of those laws.”
He said it was equally as bad that the public, Senators and TDs are not allowed to see the laws before they are enacted on their behalf.
Daly said that in an average year, the Oireachtas will pass “about 50” pieces of legislation, while there could be as many as 200 pieces of EU legislation that are signed into law.
“Now, if you were in a country where you said the members of parliament are only allowed to see 20 per cent of the laws, you would question whether or not that was democracy in action.”
He said the committee will meet within the next two weeks, “given the seriousness of the fact that we have been stopped from doing our work”, and will also write to the Taoiseach, the Attorney General and relevant Ministers whose departments failed to share draft legislation with the committee.
Minister of State for European Affairs Thomas Byrne told the committee that the European Commission has “the sole right of proposing an EU law” but before those laws come into effect they “have to be passed by the member states and by the European Parliament. So there’s a full discussion on those laws that goes on among the member states.”
