Extract from the minutes of a meeting of the Foreign Trade Committee

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4. The question of Ireland's adherence to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was raised and it was suggested that as Ireland might not be able to continue indefinitely its refusal to take part in multilateral tariff negotiations, it would be well if a detailed examination of Ireland's tariff position were now undertaken so as to ensure that Ireland would be in a position to commence negotiations with the least possible delay, should the necessity arise. The Committee felt that an analysis of the various tariff headings would involve a considerable amount of work and that this work should not be undertaken until specific demands for tariff reductions had been made. In any case, the review of tariffs on a large part of Ireland's import trade was already provided for in the Anglo-Irish Trade Agreements.

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