Mr. Gerry Liston:

Absolutely not. They are saying the public policy basis on which to take unilateral action in relation to services is equally there, but just not there as explicitly. This is precisely to avoid the absurd situation that Senator McDowell referred to yesterday, where if this were not the position, we would have a situation where Ireland, for example, could restrict gambling services coming from the Netherlands on the grounds of public policy but could not do so in relation to gambling services coming from the UK because it is now outside the EU. I will not speak for the professors but they will essentially explain that basis is there. There is no question, then, in the first place of reconciling competing obligations. There is a basis in EU law to ban services. Not to make the argument and to push the case, if necessary, in the European courts when it is so clearly available to be made, would be to flout the international law obligation rather than to reconcile the two.