Ms Doyle, MEP:

Approximately 60, of which the EPP has 22. Mr. Jim Fitzsimons and Patricia McKenna are also on it. That committee is the most active in terms of the number of hours it sits and the amount of legislation with which it deals. The committee services all the proposals from DG5 under Commissioner David Byrne. In the last four years, he has proposed 90 legislative proposals concerning food, so I have had much interaction with him. There is an interesting working dynamic because, while a Fianna Fáil-PD Government represents the majority result in the last general election, in the European Parliament we have no government or opposition, just the different groups. I am member of the largest political group. Therefore, if the Government, departmental officials or the permanent representatives want to achieve something of particular Irish interest, they must have the EPP group on board in order to have the critical mass of votes on plenary stage. As leader of the Irish delegation in the EPP group, I do a lot of tick-tacking with Government officials and the permanent representatives who represent different Departments. There is, therefore, an interesting Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael dynamic that is not obvious initially.