Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Carthy and Mr. Hayes for their attendance this morning. I hope Mr. Hayes recognises me without my Taliban outfit. It is good to have both of them here for this useful exercise. There needs to be more connectedness between the activities of the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach, the Department of Finance and the EU. When the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, was responding in the Dáil last month to questions asked by two of my colleagues about the PEACE and INTERREG programmes, he said "Regrettably, what we are looking at are equivalent programmes in what are referred to as 'third countries' [this has been mentioned by Mr. Hayes] to see how or whether they offer a precedent for the development of programmes post-2020". That seems to be incompatible with the guarantees that have been won during the Brexit negotiations. Are Mr. Carthy and Mr. Hayes concerned about the Minister's language? Will they raise it at the European Parliament Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs?