These questions were put to the Tánaiste. He has not answered them and we can only draw our own conclusions from his unwillingness to answer them. Is he aware that it is now almost three years since the Taoiseach, on 15 November 1985, met the British Prime Minister other than for brief ten or 15 minute periods on the margins of European councils to discuss Anglo-Irish affairs? In view of the fact that the third anniversary of the agreement is imminent, does he not consider that it is a time when a meeting such as this would be particularly useful? Does the Tánaiste agree that while the conference may be working at official level, it appears, in the last year in particular, to have lost political direction and drive and should be put back, by the leaders of the two countries, on the high road that it enjoyed in 1985?

I do not subscribe to the suggestion that the conference has lost any political drive. We have had more meetings in the past 12 months than were ever held in any 12 month period since the initiation of the conference. The question of meeting the British Prime Minister will be considered whenever it is appropriate. That again is a matter that will have to be viewed in the context of what I said earlier on.

Is it not regrettable that the Government should adopt this absolutely minimalist approach to the review of the workings of the agreement?

I did not say that. The Deputy said it.

I did, and I think I am entitled to say it.

I did not say we were adopting a minimalist attitude.

I asked, is it not a pity that the Government should adopt this minimalist approach to the review of the workings of the Anglo-Irish Agreement, particularly when we have seen in recent months a flexible approach of a kind that had not been visible earlier on the part of Unionists in Northern Ireland? Would the Tánaiste agree that if something concrete does not happen within the next three or four weeks, there is every likelihood that that welcome flexibility which was shown on the part of many Unionists will come to an end and will be withdrawn and we will be back to the old sterile Unionist-Nationalist situation again?

We must not forget this is Question Time.

The Deputy's question is very unhelpful and damaging to the prospects of what I hope everybody here wishes to achieve.

It is the Government's attitude, I regret to say, that is unhelpful.