Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Nothing is prohibiting us from applying and being accepted next year. It was agreed on 21 November that we would join PESCO.

There were two, possibly three, meetings of the Business Committee at which we discussed arrangements for the Dáil schedule. At no point in any of those meetings did the Government signal that there would be a vote on this matter. That was only indicated on Tuesday of this week. Will the Minister of State explain why this was the case? It is very suspicious. To underline this point, others at that meeting had asked about PESCO but there had been no comment from the Government to suggest this was coming. There was no comment last Thursday when the business for this week was being discussed. All of a sudden on Tuesday we were told that there would be a vote on Thursday. Does the Minister of State not think we could be forgiven for being deeply suspicious that the Government knew something since 21 November but had not bothered to tell the committee dealing with Dáil arrangements?