andMr. Quinn asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement on the preparatory work being undertaken by his Department for the Madrid Conference which will review the operations of the Helsinki Final Act.

As the Deputies will be aware, the Madrid follow-up meeting to the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe is scheduled to open in November of this year with a preparatory meeting beginning in September.

Preparatory work for the Madrid meeting has been under way in my Department for some time. In reply to a similar question in May 1979, the approach being followed in the preparatory work was outlined. Since that time work has intensified as the date of the Madrid meeting approaches.

A major part of our preparatory work is being carried out jointly with our partners in the European Community. During Ireland's EEC Presidency we devoted a good deal of attention to furthering Community preparations for Madrid. A considerable amount of the groundwork has now been accomplished in Community preparations. The monitoring of the implementation of the Final Act by all the participating states is of course a continuous exercise and in that sense the preparatory work is obviously open-ended.

Apart from joint work with our Community partners, preparations for Madrid include an assessment of our own situation with regard to implementation of the Final Act and also extensive contacts with countries outside the Community. These contacts take the form of bilateral exchanges of views at all levels and joint meetings at official level between the Community member states and other CSCE signatory states.

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