Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

With regard to the first question, on two occasions recently we produced an amended version of the constitution on the issues on which we have made progress. That happened at the two Foreign Affairs Council meetings that took place in May. We have kept everybody up to date. The only areas in which we have not produced a text is where the issues are still under discussion, mainly those I mentioned earlier. However, we have produced a full text on the future of the Commission and the reduced Commission from 2014. With regard to the other issues, we still have to finish the tour of capitals and discuss them with the Council secretariat and the Commission.

Most of the issues will be put down for the foreign affairs meeting which is to be held earlier in the week of the Council meeting. If the remaining issues are not agreed, we will not produce a text but will wait for the Council meeting. However, we are narrowing down the issues and trying to get agreement. At the contact group recently we gave it a fair indication, although we did not produce a text, of where the Irish Presidency would like this to go, so the group would at least know our thinking. We have been even handed and up front. With 27 countries, plus the Commission and the Council secretariat, there is no point in trying to surprise anyone because it would be one bloc against another. There are many different groups of like-minded countries — the Benelux countries, the Mediterranean group and so on — as well as political groupings. That is why I have tried to negotiate on the basis of not giving anyone any major surprises.

On the second issue, I do not think it will be a shock to anyone to hear that this is a consular issue. I have discussed this a number of times over the years with the families involved. Obviously any charge is serious, but some of these charges were more serious than others. The people concerned were found innocent of these. The issue now is whether they should have to stay in jail for two years pending an appeal. This seems an inordinate amount of time and it would certainly not happen in this country or most other countries. If the appeal can be heard quickly, these matters can be dealt with quickly. It seems a reasonable request, from a consular point of view, that these people should not have to spend much longer in prison as they have already spent three years there.

It is a regular occurrence that if a person returns home pending an appeal, his or her family or legal representatives are asked to make a commitment to ensure he or she will turn up at a police station if requested to do so. These people are well represented by legal teams in Ireland and Colombia. If the guarantee were not made it would be a problem, but the families have told me there will be no difficulty with this. However, the three people, their families and their legal representatives would prefer that they stay in jail so the appeal may be heard quickly and the matter can be concluded. This is the better solution. In a case in which the judge came out strongly with the evidence — and one which has come to court so many times — it seems reasonable and fair that those involved should be released and either allowed to come back to Ireland under a guarantee that they will return if required or, better still, remain in Colombia while the appeal takes place quickly.

See this speech in context