Would the Minister indicate to us in regard to the establishment of a 200-mile fishing zone the procedure to be followed? Will a motion of this House be necessary?

That is a separate question and a somewhat technical one. If the Deputy puts down a question on it I shall be glad to answer it.

I can give the Minister the answer to it.

In that case there is no point in the Deputy asking the question. At the moment I am answering a question about securing a 50-mile limit. I am not answering technical legal questions.

Fifty-mile and 200-mile zones are very close to each other and involve the same procedures.

No.

Is it the Minister's intention to come before the House, in pursuance of his promise which he has obviously given to the Council of Ministers, to extend Ireland's fishing limits?

The necessary steps will be taken.

What will they be?

Will the Deputy put down a question on the matter? It does not arise on the question now before us. If the Deputy desires to make any more mileage out of the propaganda he tried to produce——

We have come to the end of questions. Let us finish on a harmonious note.

Perhaps it might be suggested we are fishing in troubled waters.

The Deputy has been extending the question from 50 miles to 200 miles.

I have been trying to extract some information from the Minister. There is the question of a 200-mile limit and we as a country must make that declaration. I understand the Minister has promised the Council of Ministers that he will make such a declaration. There is another question of a 50-mile limit. I want to know what are the appropriate procedures for, on the one hand, declaring a 200-mile limit and on the other hand declaring for ourselves a 50-mile limit.

It does not arise on this question. The mechanism is one that involves this country as a State declaring a 200-mile zone by the legal and constitutional procedures appropriate to this State, which do not arise on this question and which are a matter for the Attorney General and the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, and I am not prepared to go into them on this question. On the 50-mile zone, the process is one of negotiation with a view to securing agreement on a regulation or directive, as the case may be, of the European Communities.

It seems astonishing that the Minister for Foreign Affairs does not know——

I know what is irrelevant to the question asked and what is relevant.

Is it a fact that in The Hague talks the Minister agreed to do two things, one, that Ireland will establish a 200-mile zone and, two, that the negotiations in regard to that will be handed over to the Commission and will not be retained by this country?

It is totally irrelevant to the question. If the Opposition are not capable of framing relevant questions——

The remaining questions will appear on tomorrow's Order Paper.

I have asked a very legitimate question——

I have given the Deputy a lot of latitude.

I think the House would agree that the Minister for Foreign Affairs would be permitted to finish his questions.

There are only two more.

Will the Minister agree that he has agreed to extending our limit to 200 miles and that he has agreed to hand over negotiations on the situation to the Commission— that he has given away completely and totally our national position without getting a single thing in return?

The Deputy is referring to the accession treaty which he negotiated, and as a result of the wording of that accession treaty and the specific wording of its articles in regard to fishing rights in the future as well as in the past, any extension of fishing limits that brings new waters within the control of the common fisheries policy—that is the clear wording of the treaty——

That is not so.

It is not true.

That is the legal position as interpreted by the Commission and the Council. It is the legal position we now have. The Government then, in agreeing to the terms of the treaty, did not so word it as to limit the application of the common fisheries policy to the existing limits. That was a fundamental error in the negotiations. That error has proved disadvantageous to us. I regret it happened.