The Minister in his reply quoted the statement of last month and said he hoped the Unionists would avail of it to submit their views. Is anything being done informally to ascertain their views? Is there any contact by his Department, through the Secretariat, with certain Unionists to try to bring them into the process? The Minister will know that I am not in favour of this long review of the Agreement. Can he assure us that it will be finished by the end of January and will come before this House very early in February? The length of time being taken to carry out this review is damaging.

The end of February or 1 March was the kind of deadline we had in mind — three months, December, January and February.

It is stretched and stretched.

I share the Deputy's concern in regard to the Agreement. We will let past views go by in this respect. The Agreement and the Conference represent the one anchor of hope through which we can talk to the British Government and deal with Northern Ireland affairs, doing so in a quiet committee style manner rather than engaging in any megaphone diplomacy. That has been the main achievement of the Conference and it has enabled us to discuss matters in a reasonably calm atmosphere.

I wish to remind the Minister of the question I asked him earlier. It would be ungracious of me, and I will not indulge in it, not to welcome the change of attitude by the Minister towards the Criminal Law (Jurisdiction) Act and the Anglo-Irish Agreement. I am very glad of that but I asked him about the Unionists.

At all stages there are many contacts with the Unionists. This is a very delicate matter and I cannot say anything in public about who these contacts are conducted by. So far as the Official Unionist Party position is concerned there has been, until now, no response. An offer has been made to them by the British Government and on several occasions by the Taoiseach to take part in discussions and we await their response. The Unionists know they are welcome to participate during the review process in any discussions concerning improvements in the Anglo-Irish Agreement or Conference or outside that context altogether. They are free to come in on any parallel talks where it might be appropriate and constructive to have such talks, without prejudice in any way to the operations of the Conference.

I am interpreting what the Minister has said to mean there is something going on but I will not probe it any further.