Mr. Naoise Gaffney:

That is a fair question. Further on in our submission, we said that if Ireland joined soon thereafter, it would not be too late for it to participate. It is a fair to suggest that Ireland may not be at the starting blocks when the gun goes off. That is probably quite likely at this stage. The question for us now is how far behind the starting line we will be. That is, to some extent, within our control. I take the Deputy's point about referendums not being run lightly. Much preparation needs to go into them and considerable material needs to be produced to educate the electorate but, at the same time, we still have a degree of choice and control. We alluded to the fact that it would potentially be problematic if Ireland joined two years down the line, but if we only joined a few months down the line, it may be less so. It is perhaps not such a binary situation of our being there or not, but of how quickly afterwards we can join.