John Bruton (Meath, Fine Gael)

She is doing well. Her name is Ana Botella.

I do not know the answer to the question put by Senator Bannon about the charter of local government. I will investigate whether there is any recognition of that charter in the European Union. As the Senator is aware, that is a Council of Europe charter, which has a different provenance to the European Union, but there is no reason it cannot be considered to be something we would at least work towards in the European Union. I will take the matter up as result of what the Senator said.

The Senator is correct also in saying there is a tendency to blame Europe for measures that Ministers, on many occasions, agree to indirectly. Many actions taken in Brussels are not taken by the European Commission but by management committees and various other committees on which the Irish Government is represented. However, many of the people who represent Ireland on those committees have been members for years, do not tell their Ministers what they are doing, agree to measures and then, when the decision comes to be implemented, blame Brussels when it was the people representing Ireland, Spain, Italy, France and all the other countries who agreed to these measures.