Mr. Ronnie Downes:

I am not in a position to comment on what inferences the Deputy draws from it, but the question has been posed to the European Commission to review the EU-Israel association agreement. There are a number potential outworkings of that, but the universe of potential outworkings is quite limited. Either nothing happens, or at the other end of the spectrum it is suspended and those preferential tariffs no longer apply in which case Ireland would continue to do business with Israel on the basis I mentioned earlier, which is the WTO standard rules. They are less preferential than those in place at present. However, in the overall scheme of things the volume of trade Ireland has with Israel is something we would have to manage. Modest but not insignificant was my characterisation of Ireland-Israel trade.