MEPs do their work primarily in committee, which is where the real political debate takes place, particularly on major issues affecting all member states such as immigration and asylum. I confess that immigration was minimal when we first started to consider legislation on issues of this nature, to the extent that if one saw a foreigner who was not on holiday, one wondered what he or she was doing here. I felt slightly uncomfortable, therefore, taking a political position on asylum and immigration issues because many of my colleagues were from countries into which hundreds of thousands of immigrants and asylum seekers were crossing. They faced completely different circumstances from Irish MEPs. The position regarding immigration has now dramatically changed. It used to be easy when one did not have to deal with this kind of issues in the sense that, as with all legislation, it is fine provided one does not have to implement it oneself.