Our democratic deficit is closer to home than anti-EU brigade suggest

THE debate on the EU constitution has begun and the chances are that it could become one of the greatest bores of all time because the same old faces are lining up with the same old tired arguments.

They tried to stop this country joining the European Economic Community (EEC) and are already gathering for what could be their last hurrah.

They opposed the Luxembourg, Amsterdam, Maastricht and Nice Treaties and every other step since we got into Europe. They had a victory of sorts in delaying the Nice Treaty largely because of the arrogance of the Government in taking it for granted that the same old crowd with their tired old arguments would be defeated without any effort.

When the idea of a united Europe was first being mooted, Eamon de Valera rejected the idea of Irish involvement. He was not personally opposed to a united Europe, but he told the Assembly of the Council of Europe in August 1949 that it would be very difficult to persuade the Irish people to enter a European federation at the time. After all, they had been trying to sever the country’s ties with Britain for over 700 years, and joining Europe would entail ties to an even larger entity.

“I am sure,” he said, “you can understand with what a cynical smile an Irish citizen would regard you if you spoke to him about uniting into a huge state the several states of Europe with their diverse national traditions so long as he contemplates his own country kept divided against his will.”

Those countries that believed in European unity should go ahead, he said, without Ireland.

“It is from no desire to interfere with or delay them that some of us here have spoken against the attempt at immediate federation. It is simply because we know the task that would confront us in persuading our people to proceed by that road.”

Somebody aptly described this country as a priest-ridden bog at the time. There were howls of indignation recently about the behaviour of American troops at Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad. No doubt the anti-American clique will be denouncing US President George W Bush over that behaviour when he comes here next week.

As a people, we should certainly sympathise with the abused and insist that such behaviour be stopped. But we should realise that we tolerated even worse in this country for decades without raising a voice for fear of a proverbial belt of the crozier. The physical abuse and sexual torture that went on in our industrial schools were worse than what happened in Abu Ghraib, because the offenders here were preying on children. Yet our authorities turned a blind eye while it was going on.

That was de Valera’s Ireland. My abiding memory of the 1950s was of school friends whose families were uprooted because their fathers had to emigrate in search of a living.

In the 1930s, de Valera, with the connivance of Fine Gael, could blame deprivation on the economic war which Britain was waging on this country. In the 1940s, Winston Churchill twisted the economic screw because he disagreed with our right to stay out of the Second World War. In the context of those events, de Valera’s decision to stay out of Europe was understandable.

When we were able to make our own way in the 1950s, we were making a right bags of it until TK Whitaker came to the rescue with his economic programme, which began to take effect after Seán Lemass became Taoiseach. Against the backdrop of what went before him, Lemass stood out as a kind of political saviour. It was he who made the first move to get Ireland into Europe. In the early 1960s he put Jack Lynch in charge of preparations to join the Common Market.

Nobody was in any doubt that a political union was the ultimate aim of the EEC. In 1966 the EEC closed its doors to the export of Irish cattle, and this gave rise to a serious political crisis that led to the retirement of Lemass and his replacement by Lynch, who began to rely heavily on his Finance Minister, Charles J Haughey, to negotiate our entry into the EEC.

Membership of the EEC would afford Ireland “an opportunity to take part in the building of a new Europe”, Haughey told the Dáil in 1967.

“Inside that new Europe I think we could feel a great deal more secure in this troubled world because this new united Europe would be a potent influence in world affairs, in the promotion of international peace in our time.”

He left no doubt that the country’s avowed neutrality should not prevent involvement in the military alignment which seemed an inevitable aspect of EEC membership.

Political union “would be utterly meaningless” without “common defence arrangements”, Haughey emphasised.

LYNCH explained that his government had no reservations about the political union envisaged in the Treaty of Rome, and he cited Haughey’s remarks in the Dáil as evidence that his government not only understood the implications of membership of the EEC but had also explained them candidly to the Dáil.

In 1972 an overwhelming majority of over 83% of the Irish electorate voted in favour of joining the EEC. The vote that day entailed acceptance that Ireland would eventually become a full partner in a united Europe.

Many of those who opposed joining the EEC have been opposing every other step of the way ever since. Anthony Coughlan has been on radio repeatedly this week, complaining that we are essentially abandoning the nation state and devolving power to the EU.

The EU is a confederation of representative democracies, some of which had little democratic tradition. In order to protect ourselves and everyone else, it is necessary to have in-built safeguards, and the best way of doing this is by a written constitution that would ensure that our interests are protected by the rule of law, rather than allowing size or military strength to dictate the direction of the EU.

Instead of another tired old debate on issues that were agreed more than 30 years ago, we should be debating the details that would provide proper protection for our individual and national rights. We decided to join that EU knowing full well the form it would take.

Even if we wished to get out now, we could not do so without destroying our economy. Today we are the largest exporter in the world relative to our population, and we need Europe infinitely more than it needs us. Do we wish to go back to the old days when people had to go all over the world in search of employment? Irish people may still be emigrating, but now it is by choice.

Talk of a democratic deficit in Europe ignores our own limitations. We can learn from Europe, where the system of government is much more open.

This week we saw further controversy over the way in which Government and civil service have been deliberately frustrating the Freedom of Information Act.

Our democratic deficit is the crying need to recognise that the real bosses are the people, not the politicians, and certainly not the civil servants.