Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

No Bill is listed on the competition issue. Obviously, the legal advice will have to be considered but no legislation is listed at this stage.

A number of points arise with regard to the joint committee on the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. There have been many discussions in recent years. There was an agreed position some years ago on a committee chaired by the Minister, Deputy Brian Lenihan, on the format of the proposed committee. Subsequently, there was a change of view so we had to revise those proposals. The present committee is based on the revised proposals on which we had agreement with the parties in the House.

We are only referring to MPs elected to Westminster, not MLAs. That is the distinction. I had an opportunity, with the Ceann Comhairle, to meet the Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly, who visited last week. We discussed the North-South parliamentary forum, which would obviously include MLAs. We hope to work to achieve that. I hope we will have the parliamentary forum up and running in the new year but it will take some time. While I cannot be sure how long it will take, the joint committee will be established before then.

I have had consultations with the parties in the North. Some parties will certainly take the opportunity to attend while others initially will not.

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