Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Like my colleagues, I welcome you here again and thank you for your interest. I will add some concluding comments.

You raised some points about the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, CETA, between Canada and Europe and asked about what the themes of our Presidency would be. Ireland's economy is deeply integrated with the economy of the outside world. The main thing keeping our economy stabilised at present, with the possibility of growth in the future, is our ability to export goods and services. Any type of agreement that facilitates the greater flow of goods and services across the world is something Ireland would very much support. We believe that within that environment we are producing goods and services that people will want to buy. As a result, the Irish view of the agreement would be that we would want the most ambitious settlement possible to facilitate the people you represent selling their goods and services elsewhere. We want the same for our people.

With regard to the forthcoming EU Presidency, two main themes will probably dominate the work we do. The first will be reaction. Europe has been grappling for the last three years with the sovereign debt crisis and I believe issues such as the creation of a banking union will arise within the term of our leadership of the European Union. How we react to that and how we deal with work that is ongoing at present will take up a huge share of the energy and attention we have for the Presidency, as will the response of the European Union to the terrible trauma taking place in Greece and the continuing uncertainty regarding the ability of some countries to fund themselves into the future. I believe that will be a major part of our work in the Presidency.

The second part will be our priorities and the normal priorities of the European Union. Our priority is very much focused on jobs and we consider the acceleration of measures relating to the Single Market as very important for that, particularly in respect of the digital sector. Second, as you may have noticed from the demonstration outside the House, the negotiations on the Common Agricultural Policy will probably be concluding during our Presidency, while we will do our best to steer the negotiations on the multi-annual financial framework for the European Union to a close if they are not already concluded by the time we take over.

That is a whistle stop tour of some of the issues on which I believe we are likely to be focused. I have a question for the witnesses. The Canadian Minister of Finance, Mr. Jim Flaherty, has been very critical of the European Union's response to the debt and economic growth crisis in Europe. What are your individual perspectives on how you anticipate Europe responding to the difficulty we have? I should acknowledge that Canada is the leader of the International Monetary Fund, IMF, delegation, of which Ireland is a part. I understand our Minister for Finance, Deputy Noonan, and the Canadian Minister of Finance have a very good working relationship. In fact, Mr. Flaherty visited Ireland a number of weeks ago to receive an honour at one of our universities and also to talk about Canada's view on what it wishes to see happen with regard to the debt crisis and about its strong support for Ireland, which I acknowledge.

Again, thank you for attending and I hope the rest of your visit goes well. If any of you wish to respond to the points I and my colleagues have made, we would be delighted to hear it.