Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On the rule of law conditionality, this is the sequence. The recovery and resilience fund was agreed last year as part of the budget negotiations, an unprecedented financial boost from the European Union to try to boost the economies of the entire European Union. We need to get away from - and I do not accuse this committee of this - sometimes speaking in terms of "how much is Ireland getting" and "how much is Italy getting" or whatever because actually a country like Ireland benefits no matter who gets it. Our companies will be trading with those countries and we depend on those countries doing well. Also some of the money that is allocated to other European countries will end up being spent here, maybe on computer or pharmaceutical companies, whatever the case may be.

There was concern that funding would be subject to rule of law conditionality so there were many discussions this time last year from October to Christmas between the European Council and the European Parliament. Ultimately agreement was reached after much discussion and the rule of law conditionality regulation was put in place. It was then challenged by Hungary and Poland, and it was part of the political agreement with the European Council that they could do that. That case is now pending before the European Court of Justice. We supported the conditionality regulation, and the rule of law conditionality in regard to funding being allocated. We took part in that case at the European Court of Justice. Our lawyers were central to the arguments being made in support of the European Council position. We will await the outcome of that decision. I cannot give a timeline but I understand it will be relatively soon. It took place only last week so we will let the European Court of Justice decide that case. My understanding is it will possibly be next month but I am not a spokesperson for the court so we will let it do that, but it has happened very quickly. That is the sequence of events and once this goes through, I hope in accordance with the arguments that we made, the challenge will not be successful. It would then be a real tool for the European Commission. It will be a game changer in terms of what can happen.