Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

That is only natural because otherwise we would be flooded with complaints. At the same time, it is discriminatory against those for whom we are not providing services if we remain outside the protocol. Those people have no one to whom they can complain. I asked the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, if he is committed to ratifying the protocol. He says he is. The committee was told in 2020 that the protocol would be ratified in 2021. We now have the whole of the UN and Covid-19 to blame for the delay. Do we have a defined timeline now? I was unaware that we are lagging in respect of the legislative requirement. I was under the impression we had not compiled our first report to the UN since 2018 and we were not going to see ratification before that was completed.