ABSTRACT
Relations between the Irish Parliament (Oireachtas) and the European Union have, until very recently, been characterised by a combination of neglect and ignorance. This stands in marked contrast to the consistently high level of public and political support for Irish membership over the last two decades, as evidenced in the clear two-to-one pro-Europe results in constitutional referenda on Irish accession in 1972, on the Single European Act in 1987, and on the Maastrict Treaty in 1992. It also appears anomalous given the enormous impact which membership has had on the Irish economy and society, and the highly public preoccupation of successive governments and of the Irish policy system with obtaining the maximum possible slice of funds from every EU programme. Other countries are equally as diligent at pursuing their national financial interests at EU level, but it is doubtful whether the exercise is quite as public as it is in Ireland, where no politician or significant interest group is in any doubt about the imperative to increase the country's take from Europe. I
Why, given this high general level of political awareness, has the Oireachtas as an institution formally been so conspicuously uninterested in EU affairs for most of the period since Irish accession? Explanations can be found in the development of Irish parliamentary culture since independence in 1922, in the nature of the Irish policy-making process, and in the receptivity of European community institutions to interestgroup representations - for Irish farmers, to take an obvious example, the real action is now in Brussels, not in Dublin. This discussion, however, will focus specifically on the Oireachtas.2
