Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Technical or not, it is not a European Council meeting. It is a meeting of 27 countries who happen to be members of the European Council. I am not going to be petty about this. If the House wants to have a discussion on the pre-April 29 situation I am quite happy to do that. I disagree fundamentally with Deputy Doherty, however, because the priorities we have set as a Government for Northern Ireland are all included in the letter from the British Prime Minister. They are specifically referred to in the paper from the European Parliament and are also referred to individually in the paper from the European Council's President, Mr. Tusk.

There are a number of meetings taking place over the next week to ten days. We have submitted some further wording in respect of the Good Friday Agreement, what it means and how important that is to the priorities we have already set out. It is a matter for the House or the Business Committee and I am sure the Chief Whip will oblige. If they want to have statements before the meeting of the 27 member states, I do not mind.

Deputies have been pretty well briefed on this matter and there is absolutely no shortage of material. We are very different from the Gibraltar case, when Deputy Doherty talks about vetoes.

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