Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

On the first issue, there has been no change on the progress and the agreements we got at Christmas. As the Deputy will recall we got those written into the conclusions. The resources we secured for the peace fund — the amount of which I cannot remember off the top of my head — were included in the conclusions and agreed. I do not believe there is any danger in that regard and I have had no further discussions on it. The only difficulty is that the European Parliament has not agreed the financial perspectives and discussions are currently taking place. The Council and Presidency are working with the European Parliament and the Commission on what is called the insterinstitutional agreement to give legal effect to the future of the financial perspectives, and that has to be agreed. It is a co-decision between the Parliament and the Council. The European Parliament, as the Council's partner in deciding the EU budget, will be aware of the political reality surrounding agreement on the various balances. The Parliament is seeking additional money. That has to be worked around by the Presidency. As in all such cases, I hope they do not come back and start to try to take the additional money that Parliament is seeking out of some of the measures we negotiated. I have no reason to think that will affect the peace fund but I always worry about these issues because people will say they will not give any more money and will start to try to cut back on measures on which we agreed. As of now I do not see a need for concern or fear in regard to this issue.

On the issue of roaming charges, it is four years since I raised this issue at a Dublin Chamber of Commerce function. We have been engaged with the companies since then in trying to progress this matter. We had to get agreement in this regard from the British Government because we did not only want to remove roaming charges — as Deputy Ó Caoláin will be aware in his region he does not even have to cross the Border before being hit for roaming charges — for the island but also for the UK for which we needed the British Government on side. It was an issue we pressed. Having outlined and given our case history on this issue last week, I am glad the Commission yesterday — it was not totally in support of my position last Friday but when we outlined and explained the issue, Vodafone and O2 having thankfully explained to me how it operated — when it realised the point quickly supported our position and announced it as a Commission decision. I am very glad that an Irish issue which we took up and fought for was taken on by the Commission. I would have loved the Commission to mention that the issue was raised by Ireland but I suppose that would be too much. I was delighted to hear——

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