The Government has been accused of failure and neglect in relations with the European Union. The charge is made in a lengthy assessment by the Fine Gael spokesman on foreign affairs, Mr Jim O'Keeffe.
He said that, unlike the three previous administrations, the Government had failed to appoint a minister for European affairs. "Almost alone of the 15 member-states, Ireland has no minister for European affairs to lead the debate and ensure the co-ordination of Ireland's European policy."
Mr O'Keeffe also criticised the level of attendance by Ministers at EU Council of Ministers meetings.
"The Tánaiste has attended only nine of the 98 council meetings involving her Department and has failed to ensure any sort of ministerial attendance at nearly a third of these council meetings," he said.
"In the crucial and sensitive area of justice and home affairs Minister O'Donoghue has been almost alone among his European colleagues in missing key discussions such as those on the fingerprinting of illegal immigrants on December 3rd-4th, 1998.
"Even worse, some such as Minister Síle de Valera, a noted non-attendee, have the hypocrisy to complain about unaccountable bureaucracies. At the same time Ministers themselves fail to ensure accountability by doing the job they are paid to do and attend such decision-making bodies."
A spokesperson for the Tánaiste said that within her area of responsibility 14 meetings were held, of which eight were attended and four others were informal meetings. In total the Tánaiste missed only two of the meetings.