asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if the member states of the European Community have reached any agreement on a common position to be taken by them at the resumed Law of the Sea Conference in New York in August; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

Both during the sessions of the Law of the Sea Conference and between sessions European Community co-ordination meetings are held so that, where a common position can be reached on any of the issues before the conference, proposals can be tabled or statements made on behalf of the Community for the consideration of the conference in the course of the discussions. Since the fourth session of the conference has only recently ended there has not yet been time to complete a detailed study of the revised single negotiating text but co-ordination meetings have already been arranged with a view to reaching agreement on a common position on as many issues as possible for the coming session in New York in August.

I missed the last bit of the Parliamentary Secretary's reply. I take it the Parliamentary Secretary will acknowledge that it is vitally important that these co-ordination meetings will take place in view of the fact that the position of the Community vis-à-vis, for instance, our territorial waters and fishery rights is obviously essential? Might I ask the Parliamentary Secretary, in addition, whether he recognises that our special right as a maritime State—in conjunction with, say, that of France and Holland—could be presented at that conference, not merely in our national interest but also in the Community interest?

I do accept that. But of course the Deputy, in his turn, will accept that our fisheries problems and the problems of our fisheries waters are ones that must be settled mainly within the Nine and not so much as between the Nine and the rest of the world.

In so far as other major powers, such as the United States, have been able bilaterally to declare a 200-mile limit, would not it be open to us, with the support of our partners within the Community, to take a similar step in their interest and ours, with the guarantee that we had their facilities to patrol and protect these waters in our common interest so that we could negotiate together afterwards?

We have been through this before under various heads. I quite accept that it would and I am told that consensus has been virtually reached on a 200-mile limit as a global norm for the world. But, as the Deputy knows, our problem does not arise in the rest of the world; it arises only basically in the Nine. Our problem is both in regard to the admission of foreign trawlers and policing. Until we can achieve a regime with our EEC partners, we are only scratching the problem as far as others are concerned. It is true that a Rumanian was arrested yesterday but such happens once in a blue moon.

The Parliamentary Secretary has continued to talk about problems, as he did on the last occasion also. Would the Parliamentary Secretary not look at our EEC involvement not just as a problem but as a benefit factor which we could use in this? I wish he would change his thinking on that so that we could get something from the members of the Community in this area.

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