Vol. 406 No. 2
49 Mr. Spring asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if he will arrange to publish the Irish submission to the Inter-governmental Conference on Political Union in view of the fact that the submission of other Governments in the EC are becoming matters of public knowledge; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
It is normal practice during international negotiating conferences for the working documents of such conferences to be considered confidential and not for public release. In the case of the Intergovernmental Conference on Political Union this principle is also applied so that the working documents under consideration are not published by the conference.
I have arranged to lodge in the Library of the Oireachtas the draft Treaty amendments submitted by Ireland to the conference to date. These cover draft amendments to the Treaty articles on Economic and Social Cohesion; draft Treaty articles on Health and draft Treaty article on Education.
Ireland is of course contributing fully to the negotiations on all the issues before the conference.
