Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have spoken to Commissioner Vella and met him earlier this year. I have highlighted the difficulties we have with some of these directives and there is no doubt about this. I welcome the review which was initiated by the incoming Commission. The Department has engaged at official level and there is much further work to do in the process. We all need to engage in this, including our MEPs and public representatives as well as the Government. We must all engage in this process and make our views known. A total of 520,000 responses have been received from member countries and it is open to anyone to make a submission, but it is up to the Commission to assess these responses. We will continue to engage in the process. It is at an early stage and a conference will be held later in the year and a paper will be prepared. I encourage people to make their views known and make submissions because we should not leave it up to other people. We should all get involved in the process.

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