Ms Barbara Nolan:

I thank the Deputy. I know she has in her long experience of the European Parliament seen many attempts on the rule of law and how difficult it is to build a consensus around that issue. On the care strategy, this is a new announcement in the state of the Union address. It is being drawn up. I do not have any details but as soon as I have I am happy to share them with Deputy Harkin.

On the protocol, the EU has stood firmly with its principles in terms of supporting no border on the island of Ireland and respecting the Good Friday Agreement and other objectives of the peace process. We will continue to do that. That is the number one issue here. We have not caused this problem. It has been caused by the extreme version of Brexit that was chosen by the UK Government. That is why we needed the protocol, which is the solution and not the problem.

On the green deal, I do not disagree with anything the Deputy said. It will be hard on certain groups in society. Ireland has a lot of ground to make up, in terms of not taking green measures earlier. It will be a difficult transition across the EU for different sectors, such as coal in Poland and so on. There are different issues in different states in relation to the green deal but we are trying to save the planet. That is the bottom line and we all have to make our efforts. I take the Deputy's point that we need to engage more with the farming community on these issues and reach out to explain the direction we are going with the green deal but the bottom line is that much of the pollution in Ireland comes from transport and agriculture. These are areas where we have to reduce the carbon footprint. I do not think we can get away from that but I agree it needs to be done in a way that people feel included and listened to in the difficult adjustment process ahead.