Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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There are two issues here. First, even though the substantive political agreement was reached in November 2012, the actual agreement in terms of our portion of the payment was only determined this summer. It was not concluded before then. Second, other countries have been paying into this since its establishment. We are now coming out of our bailout programme and this is the first available way of doing it. Deputy Doherty makes a very fair point, however. We do not want this to be subsumed into the bigger debate on the Bill itself. I might suggest that what is required is a sectioning off of Report Stage to deal exclusively with this issue. We must also ensure that we have adequate time set aside on Report Stage to discuss the substantive issues within the Bill itself. If that can be arranged, we can get over the problem.