Mr. Bill Callanan:

Can I make a comment? I would not characterise the Commission's view of Ireland as being that it is at the end of its tether. I do not think that should come out of this meeting because infringement proceedings are the end of the tether for the Commission. To be clear, Ireland has not been put under infringement in this area. I would argue that the derogation process for a number of member states resulted in an engagement with the Commission where effectively it was eyeballing a member state in a negotiation about what it is doing and its additional actions. That was beneficial for the Commission because its alternative, if it did not support a derogation, was infringement which is a much slower - four or five year - process. From way back, there was a value to the Commission in having that derogation negotiation - let us be honest, it was a negotiation - because it created an environment where the Commission was negotiating what the national action programme should look like and whether it would potentially be successful, whereas what is happening in many countries that do not have a derogation is that the only censure is infringement. That is a long process. It can take four or five years. Most recently, I think the Belgians have been subject to an infringement process. I wanted to add that for clarity.