Mr. Wally Kirwan:

There was, however, a situation in that context where Hungary was not quite but close to being a full and separate partner in that entity. There was an overarching set of institutions to pull the whole thing together.

Regarding some of the materials published, there is a need to tease out aspects relating to confederation. It is not an open and shut case by any means, but if we think of all the symbolic difficulties we are going to face in trying to bring forward the new Ireland, it would be helpful if we were able to look models used elsewhere where the two sides did not have to be bound by the same symbolism. This might offer a way forward. I met Senator McDowell as I came in and he has been writing about this subject. I mentioned to him what I was going to say about it. I see the difficulty here if we wanted to have a confederation with two elements. Let us take Belfast as an example. Will we have that city in the unit that is not going the full hog in terms of the development of an Irish Ireland? One way or the other, though, there is homework to be done there, which, as I said earlier, should try to keep pace with the march of events and with an eye on what is happening in Scotland and so on as well. I will leave it at that for the moment.