Thank you very much for accommodating me. On the shipbuilding industry report all I wish to say—you have had it in hands for some time now—is that at the last meeting Deputy Quinn suggested that the Irish Congress of Trade Unions might like to comment on it. We now have a letter from them stating that they do not wish to make a formal submission on the matter. Generally, while supporting the principle of co-ordination of aids to the industry, they would be concerned with the protection of employment within the shipbuilding sector. That is their response.
We have made two points in the draft report to which I would like to draw the attention of Members. First, we say that there is a minimum critical level of activity for shipbuilding in any country. We are about only at that level in this country and we do not believe that there should be any across-the-board proportional cutback just to satisfy a need for reduction in capacity in Europe as a whole. Therefore, in effect, we should be left alone. Second, in regard to representation on the Shipbuilding Committee which is being set up in the EEC to look at the reorganisation of the industry we say that the industry itself should be able to contribute to the Committee—without necessarily belonging to it, which would be a very big, unwieldy Committee. Those are the two points to which I should like to draw attention.
