Professor Gail McElroy:

I thank the Deputies for their broad-ranging input. In no particular order, and I will not answer all the questions, I will start with the question on the role for the national parties, which Deputy Hannigan mentioned.

I would be concerned going forward given the fast-tracking of legislation and even though national parliaments have been empowered under the Lisbon treaty that the timeline for input from the national parliaments is very tight and the move towards more informal trilogue agreements means that despite the theoretical input from the national parliaments, in reality national parliaments are not particularly strengthened in the decision-making process.