Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Indeed. When Deputy Mathews referred to NATO and all of that, I recalled when I went to Berlin last week that, actually, Ireland's entry to the EEC at the time was refused by President de Gaulle on the basis that we were not members of NATO. It was a German economic Minister who came over here in 1962 and who went back and reported that this was a country that it would be good to have join the Common Market and the EEC. For that reason, I was able to remind them of that.

As I said, the opportunity is here, if necessary, to engage further with the British Government. I think the Prime Minister made the point that, from his point of view, he does not want to see a situation where it would go back to the Tony Blair days of the constant over-and-back to Downing Street. There was a lot of negotiation, a lot of discussion, a lot of involvement about having devolved responsibility. The Executive has the authority and the requirement to make that work.

Deputy Higgins mentioned the contradictions between what happened then and what happens now. A point made at a meeting held before the Olympics in London was that there was actually so much assistance available now through many multinationals for impoverished and poverty-stricken communities and villages and people in many countries in Africa. That assistance is very far flung but needs to be developed. The impact of that on the ground in the places mentioned by the Clinton initiative and by President Clinton himself, in the plight of the mothers in particular and the families reaping the benefit of knowledge and information and know-how in terms of growing plants and crops and being able to sell them locally in markets, was of such benefit to them. He is very enthused about the success of that element of the initiative and, of course, in respect of HIV and the transmission of AIDS from mothers to babies.

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