Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

The case under such circumstances is clear. I am not sure if any of them require approval of the House, although this contention is being made by the Deputy. If approval is required by the House it will be given in due course, although its timing will be a matter for the House to decide.

This has been a long-standing issue as many of these international agreements and instruments required updating. This has been done and we are in the process of bringing them into our domestic legislation. We have brought whatever administrative decisions are required to the Order Paper and I congratulate all of those who worked on these issues on bringing them to this stage. Those instruments not requiring the approval of the House are properly put to the House.

The Deputy is making a contention but I am unsure of the validity of his point. If there is any substance to the point the Deputy is making, the approval of the House will be required before some of these international agreements are properly enacted in legislation. I do not know whether the Deputy's point is correct, but he is certainly raising an issue. That many of these matters were mentioned on the Order Paper yesterday is an indication of the work that has been done to date.

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