Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I should say that I was on the Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights yesterday when these matters arose. Although we supported them on the Opposition side, we did express concern at the lack of information and time for debate that was allocated to that committee. We are conscious that there will effectively be a tsunami of such measures coming before us by virtue of the Lisbon Treaty. Therefore I want to put on the record the concerns expressed by Opposition spokespersons at yesterday's committee meeting concerning the lack of time and lack of background information provided on these measures. I stress, however, that we did not oppose them. None the less, I wanted to put that on the record.