Michael Finucane (Fine Gael)

On the issue of a leak, the Tánaiste selectively leaked information when it suited him and Senator Ó Murchú knows to what I refer.

On the accession of the new countries to the EU, whose immigrant population have contributed to the success of our economy, only three countries co-operated fully in their accession, namely Sweden, the United Kingdom and Ireland. Previous speakers have referred to the accession of Bulgaria and Romania from 1 January 2007 and I would like the appropriate Minister of State, Deputy Treacy, to discuss their accession. We should not wait for the United Kingdom to make its decision as to whether to accept these people into its country before we decide what to do. It is time for us to decide. We should take stock and analyse what has happened to date as we are approaching a situation where I at least would support a work permit concept with regard to these new countries.