Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

It will not take effect until 1 January 2014 but all of those issues must be faced. It will be a fundamental review; there is no doubt about that, as I have said consistently to agriculture groups here for some years. It is important that people do not think there is some way to avoid it. The agriculture lobby is now a small group and it will be even smaller when President Chirac steps down because he has been a strong component of it. This country will always have that agenda but the argument is limited. It will come back to a fundamental review. We can see what is happening at the WTO, where many of our colleagues have moved substantially beyond the strong line we have held in the small group within the European Union.

Bulgaria and Romania must be looked at carefully. The conclusions in June will probably state that 1 January 2007 will be the accession date, provided they have fulfilled the criteria and there are still doubts about whether that will happen. One way or the other, as that becomes clear, we will have to reflect on opening up our labour market. There are issues to influence that. We must watch what happens in the UK carefully because the common travel area means it will have a huge effect on us one way or another. We must also take account of what others are doing. We have taken an open, fair and positive line on this and we must reflect on what everyone else has done. We should not state our final position until we see what happens in Britain, where there will be far greater numbers.

I have said many times that people should not automatically assume that we will take exactly the same attitude as Britain. There are different ways of dealing with this. We have seen how other countries have dealt with it and we should reflect on it. I have kept in touch with the British side on this and they have moved up and down several times in the past year. We will have to take into account where they will ultimately go because of the common travel area. Even if we said "no" the common travel area would have a significant impact.

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