Sir - At last, I see optimistic hopes of an interesting and relevant debate on our relationship with Europe. I congratulate the Attorney General on using his influential platform to raise this matter.
As an MEP for the past 17 years I have seen some welcome, but agonisingly slow, improvements. But it has been akin to pulling teeth in attempting to have rational discussions about the huge amount of legislation which MEPs have processed over the past 17 years.
I have always argued that MEPs should be required to present their work in the Oireachtas. As the European Union wasn't even a twinkle in De Valera's eye when he drafted our Constitution, speaking rights for MEPs would require a Constitutional referendum. Faced with total apathy in attempts to achieve this, I finally gave up.
Until the Single European Act was ratified one could rightly point with scorn and derision at the working methods of the European Parliament, but one could equally look with despair at the methods with which we were, in this country, processing this legislation. Only occasionally a business might respond to one's letters asking for comment on some of the technical food legislation.
I travelled the State speaking to concerned environmental groups about the vital Environmental Impact Assessment Directive, from which we had negotiated the classical response faced with difficult legislation - the Derogation. Finally at the end of our seven-year Derogation on the EIA Directive, three days before it was due to become law, a circular, without any explanation, was sent to the county councils, informing them of its existence.
Most of the time we were faced, and indeed still are, with journalistic indifference to the legislation. I remember one well-known correspondent looking at me and saying "I refuse to write anything for the spike".
The implications of what is now the hottest political button in the European Parliament relating to asylum, trafficking and immigration, is sliding through without adequate political debate. Liberals are reluctant to discuss issues which give platforms to the formal and informal xenophobic elements in our society, and rational debate about these issues in detail are generally met with a wall of blustering obfuscation by the Minister for Justice, while those who are rationally dealing, not just with the legislation but with the practical reality of dealing with refugees, are bullied into silence.
There are very serious criminal issues involved with the trafficking, increasingly of unaccompanied minors, which has grave implications for the safety of these children and young people and which is mirrored in immigration law.
The carriers' liability, which has attracted the attention of the hauliers, is an attempt to address the vast money changing hands in the trafficking of humans into the Community from North Africa and the Eastern European countries, where it is estimated that the profits of this trade far out-weigh previous earnings on both drugs and arms.
For far too long we have been happy to concentrate our efforts on agriculture because that is where the pot of gold was buried. The majority of our MEPs in the first years concentrated their efforts exclusively on agriculture to the detriment of other issues such as education, culture, the environment and civil liberties. Happily now, Ireland's representatives can be found across all the Parliamentary committees. Unhappily, we are lucky if we get even a glancing mention in the media for the work we do. The experience gained by MEPs of all parties in the past 15 years is a vital untapped resource for the country and should be utilised within our administrative and political systems. Let the great debate commence. - Yours, etc.,
Mary Banotti MEP, Office of European Parliament, Molesworth Street, Dublin 2.