asked the Minister for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement on the recent discussions which took place with representatives of the Government of the United Kingdom concerning the Anglo-Irish Agreement, indicating what matters were discussed and what decisions were taken.

The Deputy will be aware that I had two meetings with my co-chairman in the run-up to the recent meeting of the Anglo-Irish Intergovernmental Conference on 21 October. These meetings, which took place on 15 September and 17 October respectively, were part of the preparations for the conference and addressed issues on its agenda. The joint statement issued after the conference has been laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas and gives details of the main issues discussed on that occasion.

Would the Minister say whether any agreement was reached on any of the issues; in particular, did discussions take place on the matter of extradition, the matter of the Diplock courts, the matter of fair employment and the matter of the Anglo-Irish parliamentary tier? Were any of these matters discussed? Was any agreement reached?

All of these matters were discussed and are the subject matter of a further detailed series of replies on the actual outcome of the conference itself and various other questions tabled to me. The Deputy's questions were addressed to pre-conference meetings, of which two were held with the Northern Ireland Secretary of State and myself. I gave details of them to the Deputy just now. If the Deputy will have patience there is a whole series of questions later on this issue.

The question I asked was: what matters were discussed and what decisions were taken. Could I ask the Minister to clarify for the House what decisions, if any, were taken. If none was taken then the Minister should say so.

There is a very full joint statement which is in the Library, available to the Deputy and the House, setting out in detail what was discussed at the Anglo-Irish Conference. There are questions later in relation to that. What the Deputy is talking about are preliminary meetings at which all of these matters were raised. In particular we had a very positive outcome on one aspect, that is, the fair employment legislation which is now being advanced rapidly by the British Government, designed to introduce fair employment legislation in regard to equality of opportunity and fair employment between Unionists and Nationalists, Catholics and Protestants, a system that will have teeth in it which the present system does not have and which will extend such fair employment practices across the board to semi-State agencies as well as to the civil service, local authorities and the private sector. All of that occupies a higher place on the agenda than it used. The British Government will be introducing legislation in Westminister next year along those lines. I mention that as one example of a very practical conclusion.

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