Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Okay. If I can go back to Senator Daly's original point, was that something the Department was aware of? Did it brief the Minister responsible at the time that this was a potential difficulty, which could come down the line? As a committee, we have substantial documentation in the form of submissions from several groups that have highlighted huge challenges in terms of both financial costs and practical difficulties that are going to be met by the people who we have a primary concern for, those being our own primary producers. Did this come out of nowhere or did the Department have any sense of the difficulties that would be presented by that particular formula with respect to the derogation? The derogation was put in place for a reason. The derogation was there to be availed of by some member states. I know the British Government appears to have used the derogation in a more practical way, if I can put it that way, compared to the Irish Government. I want to know where the difficulty was in that regard. European legislation is the same as Irish legislation, in that it can be changed. The second issue I want to explore is whether or not there is a willingness to change European legislation.