I welcome the roll back in the area of taxation. Ireland again took the lead in opposing any move towards tax harmonisation by qualified majority voting. I was delighted to hear yesterday at the Joint Committee on European Affairs that Deputy Ruairí Quinn strongly backed the Minister in arguing that taxation issues should be retained by the member states. It is nice to get a consensus of opinion across our parties on this major important issue. It is a fundamental issue that the relationship of the citizen and the state regarding taxation should remain within the member states.