Mr. Henry O'Donnell:

I ask the Chairman to allow me a final comment. There is an EU monitoring committee for the rural development programme. We have written to the Department asking to be included as part of Ireland's representation on this committee. The reply we received was that the Department is happy with the current composition of the group. It is very relevant to an organisation like ours, with so many environmental concerns and so many dealings with Pillar 2 funding and schemes, that we have an input into the process. We ask the committee to request that the Department reconsider this matter. We have a very valuable contribution to make.