Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I do not accept any of that. It is nonsense. This issue has been on the agenda for most meetings of the Cabinet over the past two years. The sub-committee was set up to deal with aspects of it and the officials group is working hard on it. The Deputy should put down a question to the relevant Minister whom I am sure would be glad to give the detail. I have been involved through social partnership with what we have done on the question of renewable energy and burden sharing with the Enterprise Ireland strategy, industry and agriculture. If the Deputy watched what we were doing she would see the comments about that. Probably seven or eight Ministers are actively involved in this, not just one Minister or me. We have just completed a long, difficult and arduous negotiation with the Commission in which I was directly involved and which has been well publicised. We completed this in the past few weeks and received backing from President Barroso who was kind enough to thank the country and me personally for our involvement in it. Several Ministers are involved in this problem. I accept that the Deputy wishes to follow up on this but she should table a question to the Minister because he would be glad to give some of the background on this issue.

See this speech in context