Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses for coming in and for the excellent presentation. I can answer the question the Chairman put to Mr. Harney. I raised this with the Minister in the Dáil and I found her to be particularly unyielding. She was very insistent that implementation should go ahead without reference to the exemption. There is obviously a case to be made for a difference in treatment between smaller schemes and larger ones. If there was not, the EU would not have included that escape clause in the first place. Mr. Harney has pointed out that in the UK schemes with between one and 15 members are exempt and separate arrangements are made for those with between 15 and 99 members. Does the directive allow for that? I thought it specifically set a limit of 15 members. Does it allow exemptions for schemes with more than 15 members?