Mr. Peter Bunting:

Deputy Smith asked the question, "Did it slip by us?" Not necessarily. There was Justice for Colombia. We are working with people from the Trades Union Congress, TUC, and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU. When it got to the Parliament, the problem was that it was opposed mostly by the Spanish group of MEPs, even the Socialist Party, because of their relationship with Colombia. There was a roadmap of progress and it was dumbed down to such an extent it ended up that it was not worth the paper it was written on. So it was actually down to the Spanish MEPs and even the Socialist Party MPs in Spain who did not help. We have a request in to meet the jobs and enterprise committee. That is where we were on Europe. We did attempt to do it in the European Parliament.

For Deputy Byrne, who is quite right, we have to acknowledge Santos's role to one extent, namely, that he is the lesser of two evils. He was better than Uribe. When it got to the run-off of the last election, all the progressive elements in Colombia - trade unionists, human rights lawyers, civil society organisations and so forth - voted for Santos to keep Uribe out so that it would at least help to build a peace process. In the sense of the military, he dismissed seven generals and the head of the armed forces. There is some action here and then there are reactions over there.

Deputy Byrne's proposition on the expertise and intellectual capital of those engaged in the peace process in Ireland is quite valid. On a trip to Colombia, Mark Durkan, Jeffrey Donaldson, Conor Murphy and I met the FARC negotiators in Havana and we spoke about how we did the peace process in Northern Ireland and so forth. That is a wonderful idea in the sense it would always give Ireland a name for meeting and helping with the peace process there but also utilising Ireland's intellectual capacity, particularly from the Civil Service and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, about moving on the peace process. We must also remember at this stage that it is only a unilateral ceasefire. There is no bilateral ceasefire. FARC is the only element not using violence at the moment. Bad and all as it is, and we do not hold any candle for FARC, it has declared a unilateral ceasefire, but it is not being reciprocated by the other sides. Deputy Byrne's suggestion is very welcome and should be utilised because we all also know that there is still not an absence of violence. Even an absence of violence by itself does not bring about peace, and real peace. We still have not got the absence of violence in Colombia.

There is always the argument that a free trade agreement will assist the most marginalised in countries. That was raised by Deputy Mitchell and Senator Walsh. The difficulty there, in many senses, is that the multinational corporations, MNCs, in Colombia are themselves a state within a state. Some of the people involved have huge control over the areas where the MNCs are located. There is always an army base beside it. The managers of the MNCs give instructions to the military which then carries them out. We have seen that down in Putumayo, near the oil exploration, where they wanted more land and put more peasants off the land because they wanted to dig for oil and so forth. They are putting the peasants off the land, utilising the military and the riot police.

With regard to how we can do things in the EU, let us bear in mind that the US, the greater power in America, could not really change Colombia with their free trade agreement, which resulted in what was termed the Labor Action Plan coming out, which I quote in the presentation. I also have a handout on that. The liberty was set on them by Obama and has been ridiculed and not fully implemented. That is a difficulty we all have.

With regard to Deputy O'Sullivan's point on naming and shaming companies, if I understood the Vice Chairman correctly I am not allowed to name them.