Recent Developments Concerning the Future Role of the Oireachtas in European Affairs

Abstract

The Treaty of Lisbon, which entered into force on 1 December 2009, has had a major impact on the role of the Oireachtas in relation to European affairs. The provisions of the Treaty itself and more especially the two Protocols which were adopted with it are significant enough in their own right. However, they have also produced a cascade of further reactions, each with its own consequences, beginning with (a) the amendment of Article 29.4 of the Irish Constitution; continuing with (b) the coming into force of the European Union Act 2009; further continuing with (c) the establishment, first, of interim and then permanent arrangements establishing procedures within the Oireachtas for implementing the Lisbon Treaty, successively by resolutions of each House in December 2009, then by amendments to the Standing Orders of the Dail and Seanad relative to public business in November and December 2010, respectively. Apart from this reaction on the part of the legal system to the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty provisions on national parliaments, there has also been a political response in the form of two Sub-Committee Reports, one (Ireland’s Future in the European Union: Challenges, Issues and Options) partly concerned with recommendations on the future role of the Oireachtas in European affairs, the other (the Report of the Joint Sub-Committee on the Review of the Role of the Oireachtas in European Affairs) wholly so concerned. The contents of these Reports are only to a limited extent an attempt to reflect on how to accommodate the provisions of the Lisbon Treaty and its associated Protocols. They are also the response of the stimulus provided by the Lisbon Treaty to the Oireachtas to reflect on its own role in relation to European Affairs; reflections shown to be more necessary than ever by the initial ‘no’ vote to the Treaty in the June 2008 referendum. The purpose of this paper is to examine all of these developments.