Mr. Bertie Ahern:

On the charter of rights, one of the things with which we all agreed 25 years ago was on the bill of rights. As the Deputy knows, there are conflicting arguments about why we do not have a bill of rights. It was not contentious at all 25 years ago that we should have a bill of rights. I was a big supporter of that. As for whether that worked into a charter of rights, the whole idea was that if we had a bill of rights, it would take account. It is a pity it was not done because it would have taken account of all of the European law. It would have been helpful now because as the Deputy knows, since Brexit, the British Government has been trying to change some of these things whereas if we had a bill of rights, we could have said we have an agreed bill of rights and it would not be able to do that.

I still think a bill of rights is a good idea because it is far clearer rather than having to check this, that and the other legislation and other EU laws. I am not sure the Deputy is happy that a charter of rights or bill of rights would literally be the same thing but I would say it is not too much different. The Irish Government's position at the time was that it was totally in favour of the bill of rights, as was Tony Blair's Government, but it got lost subsequently.