Ms Áine Ní Chonaill:

If I might first say, the Deputy did not get the name of our organisation correct - it is the Immigration Control Platform. It has been our practice to treat the matter of numbers as an internal matter. We have never given an answer to journalists and we will not allow them now to get it indirectly. I make that point because it would be of some relevance if there were several NGOs like ourselves working on this side of the debate which is a very contested matter all over Europe. It appears to be the case in this country that there is no other organisation, except our own, working on this side of the debate. It has been said there are somewhere around 200 working on the other side of the debate. If there were other organisations besides us, it would indeed be a matter for the committee to know which of us was the biggest one. However, since we are the only one and since all surveys and polls in Ireland show that between 60% and 65% of the population says it does want controls and it does not want immigration to go too far, we consider we have a valid voice to represent that type of opinion without dealing with the internal affairs of our organisation.