Mr. Brendan Halligan:

Thank you very much. The second respondent is Professor Gavin Barrett, who is a Jean Monnet professor of European and constitutional economic law, associate professor and deputy dean and head of research of the Sutherland School of Law in UCD where he teaches, among other subjects, of the law of the eurozone. A barrister, he is the author or editor of several books and studies, including EMU, the Third Stage, which was published by the institute, where he was one of the first team of researchers that we hired. He is an author as well of numerous books, chapters and articles and legal journals. He's also published some legal themes in The Irish Times, Sunday Business Postand The Sunday Times, and has appeared on television and radio in both Ireland and abroad. He has spoken before parliamentary committees in several countries, including Oireachtas joint committees in 12 occasions, and the House of Lords European Union affairs committee twice. His work has been cited both in the German Federal Constitutional Court's Lisbon decision and the House of Lords reports. It gives me pleasure to invite Professor Barrett to respond.