Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will pick up on a couple of points the Tánaiste and Deputy Ó Murchú made, elements of which the Tánaiste referred to in his opening remarks. At the meeting in Brussels last week of EU trade ministers, Europe's general trade policy review was discussed. The Tánaiste explained to Deputy Ó Murchú that the majority of member states have ratified this, as have the vast majority of member state parliaments, but there are still elements to go through. Will the Tánaiste give us an insight as to what the overall EU opinion among the 27 member states on this?

Senator Doherty asked me to ask on her behalf what reputational damage is being done to Ireland by the delay in ratification. The Tánaiste pointed out we are laggards in ratification. There has been a theme that certain people have tried to bring into this debate inside and outside of this committee that we do not have to fully ratify CETA, but can take the bits that have been ratified already and forget the ICS. We got clear pushback from Canadian Government representatives in that area when we heard from them. Will the Tánaiste go into the importance of remembering that CETA is an overall package? We-----