Ms Lorraine Benson:

In the text of the agreement there is a specific article on water services. Water is given the highest possible protection and recognised in the trade agreement. This derives from the general agreement on trade and services. The European Union and many other states around the world have this general reservation. A reservation is an exception in the general competition rules such that a member state does not have to open its market in these areas. There are specific exceptions included in the treaty and there is also a set of annexes. The first annexe is about existing reservations the European Union has. It is a general set of reservations and covers business, health, transport, cultural, education, air transport and energy services, to mention a few. It is important to read Ireland's reservations together with the broad EU reservations. Ireland has five specific reservations. There are specific reservations in the areas of agriculture, mining and quarrying, legal services, veterinary services and ship registration.

I will speak about their method of compilation. The trade agreements have been negotiated over many years and the previous one to which we referred, a comprehensive trade agreement, is the trade agreement with South Korea. The reservations we included in the South Korea agreement carried forward into the current set of negotiations. The European Commission lifts the reservations and we then enter into a consultation process with it. For that process we consult all Departments and have a set of interdepartmental committees at which we discuss each reservation. Each Department will tell us if there are particular interests or concerns in its sectors, for example, the health, veterinary and pharmaceuticals sectors. Through this broad interdepartmental process we gather our reservations and submit them to the European Commission.