Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests for appearing before the committee today and congratulate them for their submissions. First, as ordinary citizens of the EU, we can now see the degree to which the EU was unprepared for the crisis that emerged. This was referred to earlier by Professor McHale. Second, a number of remedies proposed to address the emerging issues did not work, or if they did work, they had the opposite effect.

I have a question concerning the ongoing discussion on austerity versus economic growth. What is the best way forward for our economy and, similarly, for all European economies in the current European context? Given the degree of debt already accumulated in a number of eurozone countries and a number outside the eurozone, what is the best way forward? The so-called policy of austerity is of course a necessity, not a policy. It is a question of using resources that are available, or not available as the case may be, so where do we go from here?