Mr. Pat Houlihan:

I can confirm to Senator Cullinane that we received a copy of the report. In fact I have it in front of me, with a lot of red ink underlining parts of it. As I noted in the course of my presentation, the possibility of incorporating as a single member private limited liability company already exists. This proposal would provide another member state dimension to the current process. I have listened carefully to the Senator's comments about the potential that the proposal could, in theory, give rise to scope for unfair play, but that is something we would monitor carefully. The committee in Brussels is going through the proposal with the proverbial fine toothcomb and people are offering their views on it, whether for better or worse. We hope that as a result of that process any scope for the kind of renegade conduct the Senator described will be minimised, if not eliminated.

The Department is beginning to focus on the comments we have received, although they are not overly voluminous, and they will guide us as we construct a coherent policy position for subsequent negotiations. The discussions at working group level have thus far been fairly tentative and focused more on questions and statements than on getting clarification or moving towards a common agreed text. Such agreement seems to be quite far away and even the Presidency's desire to progress the dossier within the confines of its own term of office, which expires at the end of the year, has been questioned by some member states. I do not perceive any indication of undue haste and, in regard to the kind of concerns that have been articulated and the issues that need to be examined, every effort is being taken to ensure the measure contains nothing untoward or unintended. Members can rest assured that Ireland will be in the vanguard of that process because we want to ensure the proposal is sanitised. It is normal when we encounter a proposal that we work our way through it to get clarification on what exactly lies behind it and, if we identify issues, we put a marker on them.