Committee Reports > List of Committees > Joint > 1981 > Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities > Report No. 89 - Implementation of Council Directives

APPENDIX

An Rúnaí,

An Roinn Talmhaíochta.

I am directed by Senator Alexis FitzGerald, Chairman of the Joint Committee on the Secondary Legislation of the European Communities, to enquire if your Department has considered paragraphs 3 to 6 inclusive of the Committee’s sixty-sixth report [Prl. 8620] of 19th December, 1979 and, if so, with what result.

(Sgd.) M.G. KILROY,

Cléireach an Chomhchoiste.

2 Meán Fómhair, 1980.

Cléireach an Chomhchoiste,

An Comhchoiste faoi Reachtaíocht

Thánaisteach na gComhphobal Eorpach,

Teach Laighean,

Baile Átha Cliath, 2.

I wish to refer to your minute of 2 Meán Fómhair, 1980 concerning paragraphs 3 to 6 of the Committee’s Sixty-Sixth report of 19 December, 1979 about the methods used to implement EEC Directives on Agricultural Structures in Ireland and to reply as follows.

This Department sees no inconsistency in implementing structural Directives by statutory instrument in one case and by non-statutory measures in others. We consider that statutory or non-statutory measures may be used depending where the balance of advantage lies in each particular case. The EEC Treaty does not require Member States to use legislative measures to implement Directives.

Article 189, third paragraph, of the Treaty provides that

“A Directive shall be binding, as to the result to be achieved, upon each Member State to which it is addressed, but shall leave to the national authorities the choice of form and methods.”.

There were special reasons for implementing Directive 72/160 by means of a statutory instrument. The objective of this Directive is to offer older farmers sufficient incentive to induce them to give up farming and release their land for purposes of structural improvement. Clearly this falls within the ambit of the Land Commission which has been invested by statute with wide powers relating to the acquisition and ownership of land. Indeed the Directive clearly envisages that land agencies such as the Land Commission have a role to play in its implementation. [See Article 5 (3)]. It was desirable that the new scheme for farmer retirement should have a legislative base particularly as matters such as acquisition, ownership and distribution of land, which obviously requires detailed statutory backing, were involved. Furthermore some of the actions required under the Directive are already provided for in our domestic land legislation e.g. purchase and allotment of land.

Similar considerations did not apply in the case of the implementation of Directives 72/159 and 75/268 and it was considered appropriate to implement these Directives by administrative measures in the form of the Farm Modernisation Scheme and the Disadvantaged Areas Scheme. Administrative type schemes such as these have certain advantages over statutory measures in that necessary amendments can be introduced easily and quickly without running the risk of clogging up the legislative process with what are often merely technical adjustments. For instance, since the introduction of the Farm Modernisation Scheme in 1974 changes in the representative rate between the Irish pound and the unit of account (or European currency unit, in which amounts are expressed in the Directive), have occurred no less than 10 times. The complexity of administration of the Scheme would have been increased and the changes could not have been made as quickly, if the necessary amendments to the Scheme had to be effected by means of a statutory instrument in each case.

Inasmuch as the Farm Modernisation Scheme and the Disadvantaged Areas Scheme entail expenditure from the Vote for Agriculture, they are, of course, potential subjects for debate in the Houses of the Oireachtas in the context of Estimates and otherwise.

This Department, therefore, takes the view that the implementation of these schemes by non-statutory measures in no way frustrates effective control by the Houses of the Oireachtas on the detailed implementation of the Community secondary legislation concerned and does not consider it necessary to provide a statutory basis for the schemes.

G. HOEY.

6 Deireadh Fómhair, 1980.