Marian Harkin Urges Stronger MEP Cooperation, Raises Hong Kong Query

First of all, can I congratulate you, Minister, on retaining your portfolio as Minister for Foreign Affairs and our new Minister for State as well, Minister Brophy. Also, seeing that congratulations are in order, I get it all out of the way at the beginning, on Ireland's success in ensuring a seat at the UN Security Council for the next two years. And I'm pleased to see, Minister, that in the estimates, you will be increasing our resources to civil society and human rights defenders at the UN. And they will certainly be raising issues around human rights, LGBTI issues, gender equality, and women's political participation in post-conflict reconciliation and disarmament. And I suppose what you all want to see at the end of Ireland's term is that we can point to our role in ensuring positive outcomes, especially in the area of human rights. Now, one section in your revised estimates refers to advancing Ireland's interests in negotiation of EU legislation and other decisions. And I was listening to your contribution on the big screen downstairs, and you specifically mentioned the German presidency and its priorities. And you also mentioned working with the European Commission on negotiating the budget, the MFF. But in a way, that sort of makes my point, because you didn't mention the European Parliament. Now, I know that, like myself, you're a former member. And I do want to acknowledge and applaud the work of the previous government in engaging with MEPs and briefing them, very often on the big ticket items. But I think, Minister, we need a change in the mindset, we certainly need a tweak, because very often, I think, the Parliament is seen to be of lesser importance. Now, you were an MEP, you know that in the legislative framework, it's like a three-legged stool. You've got the Council, you've got the Commission, and you've got the Parliament. And you also know that any strong rapporteur leading for the Parliament, and I see myself as having been one of those, can have a real influence on the detail and the minutiae of European legislation. It's not the headline stuff, it's not the big ticket items like the figures for the CAP or the Social Fund. It's detail as to how that budget is spent, whether it's the CAP or the Social Fund or the Microfinance Fund we were discussing here this week. And that's what often makes a huge difference to citizens. So my request is that there would be greater cooperation, for possible, obviously MEPs have to be open to it, but there would be greater cooperation between Irish institutions and Irish MEPs in the real work of the Parliament, the amending, the changing and the improving of legislation. In the context of North-South cooperation, I just want to refer to a programme that was put in place under Peace and Reconciliation. Now, I have no interest in this because I was never a member, but there was an important initiative that was set up whereby members of local authorities, North and South, could meet informally in a series of structured events to discuss common objectives. In fact, our current Taoiseach, Michal Martin, back in 2013 at the Merriman School said, He said, North and South, we have two societies which are a growing part, but there is nothing inevitable about this. He said, there are many areas where our community of interest is clear and where the opportunities for action are at hand. So in that context, Minister, I want you perhaps to look again at this discontinued initiative, because this had a focus of bit by bit, step by step, building personal relationships between issues of common interest. And you and I know that those kind of relationships are often far more secure and long-lasting. So I'd ask you to look at that. And my final comment is a question, and this question was already raised by Deputy Howland, but you didn't have time to answer, so perhaps you might be able to give me an answer. And it refers to our extradition treaty with Hong Kong. As Deputy Howland mentioned, Australia has revoked their treaty with Hong Kong. And I know it's a delicate issue, and I'm not asking that you give me anything definitive, but I would like to hear your views, Minister, because every one of us in this House knows that Hong Kong, the situation there, is slowly deteriorating. Thanks, Minister. I will make it to you, Ara. Thank you. And let me just try and deal with some of those questions. First of all, thank you for your comments in relation to the Security Council. And I can assure everybody in this House that we certainly did not aspire to be on the Security Council again just to sit there and to win the competition, to actually take a place on the Security Council. We want to be there to make a difference, and we want to use all the influence we have and the capacity to bring people together and build bridges within a Security Council that is quite divided right now and has been unable to make key interventions and decisions at very important times where the veto has been used and abused, in my view, in a way that it shouldn't be. So I think we have a lot of challenges, and we are right now putting together, I think, a very proactive agenda for our Security Council tenure, which will be over a two-year period. And areas like gender, disarmament, peace support, post-conflict management, all of these areas where Ireland has credibility, we will be very active. In terms of, I take your comments in relation to the European Parliament. As a former member of the European Parliament, I do understand those comments and the, I suspect, the frustrations behind them, and I take that point and will follow up on it. In terms of local authorities, North and South, I mean, the best example from my experience of that actually has been on the Derry-Donegal border, where local authorities have worked incredibly well together and are still working to really positive effect, to drive investment in the northwest on both sides of the border. And I think that is a really good example of how cross-border cooperation at a local government level can work in a very, very effective way, particularly in border counties. And I will have a look at what was there previously, the cooperation that you referred to, to see whether it might be possible to design something similar to that for the future. In terms of Hong Kong, I mean, unlike a lot of foreign ministers across the EU, I have been quite vocal and quite public on this in terms of releasing a statement on it. And we have expressed serious concern for all the reasons I think you understand. We haven't made a decision to revoke an extradition, the extradition arrangements and treaty that we have as it relates to Hong Kong. I mean, that would be a matter for the government to decide on. But that isn't the space we're in right now. Instead, we have had interaction with the Chinese embassy on this issue. In fact, more than one interaction in relation to it. And of course, we're working at an EU level as well to try to ensure that we are acting in a way that protects the one country, two systems that should apply to people living in Hong Kong. I think our market are. I think both.