Seanad report:The European Union should be conscious of the fact that the delay in the payment of REP scheme monies at this point in time would damage the "Yes" vote in the forthcoming referendum, among farmers and the IFA, Terry Leyden (FF) said.
Calling for the initiation of a rolling debate on the Lisbon Treaty, he said it was the most vital issue facing the Irish people this year. The future of 500 million people in the Union depended on the Irish electorate voting in favour of the treaty.
Liam Twomey (FG) said the EU birds directive could have a considerable effect on areas right across the country if it was implemented as rigidly as was the case in Co Wexford. It would basically sterilise all future development in coastal areas and would have a huge impact on social and environmental activities in these locations. He had heard it claimed at a public meeting that the EU was the cause of the problem.
Seanad leader Donie Cassidy said a debate on the treaty would be launched in the House by the president of the European Parliament within the next four weeks.
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The EU Directive on Data Retention was excessive in what it proposed and certainly had the capacity to facilitate mass surveillance of the population, Fiona O'Malley (PD) said. It worried her that we seemed to be readily giving our agreement. We would allow data on mobile phone traffic and computer correspondence to be retained for three years.
She was concerned there had been no debate about what was being done. How could they give powers, albeit for the laudable purpose of tackling crime and terrorism, when it would interfere with more fundamental rights?
Subversives and others involved in unlawful activities tended to change their communication systems regularly. So the problem with the directive was that it was not the guilty who were going to have records of their communications kept for a prolonged period.
A response from the Minister for Justice, delivered by Health Minister of State Pat The Cope Gallagher, said that the State had a challenge to the legal basis for the directive before the European Court of Justice, but that did not absolve us from transposing it.
Transposition meant that we would have a similar system of data retention to all other EU member states. Recital 9 made it clear that it complied with Article 8 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. "I totally reject that such a system is a breach of freedom." Some flexibility was allowed over the periods for which data had to be retained, but no final decisions had yet been made.