John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I should say the intense demands on the capital programme and the tight fiscal space we are in means that we did have to make a decision on the best organisation to join in view of the money we available right now. We chose to join ESO. We will meet representatives of CERN, as the Deputy said, in July and we will see whether we can negotiate a deal with it. As I said, and at the risk of repeating myself, we are all anxious - I am more anxious than anybody - to join CERN. We should do so, but right now we are in a very difficult financial situation in terms of trying to leverage more money to join CERN in this fiscal year. We will not be able to do it. As Deputy Lawless said, it is possible that we may be able to do a deal with CERN-----