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

I thank all members for their questions and the Chairman for the opportunity to answer them. I asked whether I had captured everyone's points because I wanted to ensure that, when I appear at these committee meetings, which I do at least once per month, I could refer to the questions asked at previous meetings without needing to re-invent the wheel. If colleagues put their energies into deliberating on points, I want to register them and be able to revert to them each time.

I will begin with the Chairman's good self and some of the points he put to me. A review takes place each year at European Council level regarding the enlargement process. This will occur at the December European Council. The Chairman referred to Turkey. The Irish Presidency worked hard on that matter. Chapter 22 was opened up via this month's intergovernmental conference, IGC. We are supportive of that process. I have met the Turkish ambassador and discussed the matter with him. This relates to one of Deputy Byrne's points. Turkey understands our support for progress by the IGC on this chapter. This issue was agreed without discussion at the last General Affairs Council, in large part due to the work done by the Irish Government. If the Chairman is interested, I can provide a detailed update on where the work stands at future committee meetings, but the first meeting on commencing the work happened only a week ago.

As to the other countries relevant to this discussion, consideration will be given to Albania's candidate status at the December meeting. Deputy Byrne asked me about this situation. There also will be discussion on the initiation of accession negotiations with Macedonia. Bosnia-Herzegovina will be discussed at next Monday's Foreign Affairs Council, where we believe the emphasis will be on the need for people within its communities to do everything they can to take responsibility for the process. In the coming months, the EU will take stock of our work with them and what else can be done. Negotiations have begun on Kosovo's stabilisation and association process.

At the December European Council meeting, an overview will be taken of the total enlargement process, which leads on to the points made by the Chairman and Deputy Byrne about Ukraine. I will attend the partnership summit in Vilnius in two weeks' time. It will address this and a number of other issues. Ireland is disposed towards signing and supports the association agreement, but we want to see progress made on the issue of selective justice. We will examine closely what happens in that country during the coming weeks, but we are also conscious of the pressure on Ukraine and other countries and the work being undertaken by their leaders. The coming two weeks will be important, in that they will confirm what our position, and that of other members states, will be.

Regarding the European semester, I am supportive of the role of social indicators in gaining a more holistic assessment of where economies and societies stand within the European project.

For example, the Chairman referenced some potential indicators of unemployment. If we had given as much focus to the indicators of unemployment as have to those on debt sustainability or deficit levels, the progress that this country and other countries are beginning to make could have been accelerated. I strongly believe that the role of social indicators is to be valued in understanding and assessing where member states are within their economy and in terms of the social pressures they face.

Where I do have a concern and where I question their role would be when they gain the same level of equivalence as many of our economic indicators in terms of the macroeconomic imbalances process. I have used a huge amount of jargon in explaining all of that and I want to explain it to myself as much as to all of the members. As colleagues will be aware, the macroeconomic imbalances procedure is a process within the architecture of the European Union that asks countries to take recognition of how particular indicators are going, for example, deficit levels in their own national economies. If action is not taken or if those indicators go completely in the wrong directions, it is open to the European Union to use sanctions in order to ensure countries focus on these in the way they should. I will go back to the points Deputy Durkan made in that regard. My rationale for why it is important for measures such as that to be included within that process is because of the strong spill-over effect of many such matters where one country's deficit level can have a strong effect on the ability of another country to fund its deficit. I believe we should proceed carefully in extending the number of indicators that we use for that process because that will raise severe issues of what are referred to as pro-cyclical difficulties, in other words, where economies are already in difficulty one makes matters more difficult for them by potentially sanctioning them. That gets us into big questions also regarding the role of national parliaments and the role of national sovereignty in how they manage social issues. We need to move deliberately and carefully within this area to ensure that we come up with a process that reflects the concerns of many member states about issues such as national sovereignty, the role of parliaments and understanding that some matters need to be looked at in a different way because of their spill-over effect elsewhere.

I link that point directly into the Deputy's question on the contracts for competitiveness. While this is an issue that many countries have raised and have discussed, we are not yet at the point of the real substance of how all of this would work, for example, issues such as whether this would have an intergovernmental provenance, would it come out of arrangements between member states, what role would the Commission play in it, etc. In that regard, our view would be that we have agreed a large amount of measures, such as the Two Pack and the Six Pack, which are all about looking at the performance of national economies and their interaction with the European institutions, and we have also voted in and implemented the fiscal governance treaty. In the past 24 to 36 months, there is a degree of architecture on EMU that is sophisticated and nuanced. Our view at this stage is we should focus on making all of that work, particularly given that Ireland is about to move into the European Semester for the first time.

There were a couple of points Deputy Joe O'Reilly asked me about and I will go through each of them. On cash access for small and medium-sized companies, I agree entirely with the point Deputy Joe O'Reilly made. That is why we are focused on completing the banking union and making that a robust process. If it is easier for banks themselves to raise money, it should be easier for that money to be passed on via credit to the companies of which the Deputy spoke. That is also why Ireland has been to the forefront in pressing for the European Investment Bank, EIB, to play a more prominent role. We would argue that the future sources of credit within national economies may not be all commercial bank orientated. There may be a role for other entities and we would see the EIB playing a role in that. That is why we welcome the role the EIB is playing in the Luas BXD line, Grangegorman DIT and other initiatives across the country.

On the Deputy's question on the youth guarantee, in this regard the Minister for Social Welfare, Deputy Burton, is engaging in extensive consultation with national stakeholders, and particularly with the OECD. Given the expertise of the OECD in this area, I welcome this. By the end of this year, which is to say, in the coming weeks, a detailed implementation plan for that will be published. That will run alongside the work that the Government is already doing in programmes such as JobBridge, internship programmes and in trying to ensure that there are opportunities for our young people while there is not the level of employment for them that we would wish.

I also agree with Deputy Joe O'Reilly's point on manufacturing competitiveness. A Europe Council in the first half of next year - this is a point Deputy Durkan raised on many occasions - will focus in on this. We must have a model for economic growth that has many engines within it and that is diversified so that when something goes wrong in one part of it, we still have other parts of an economy that are capable of growing it. To state it in a colloquial way, we have seen what happens when all one's eggs are in one basket and we need to have more baskets. Manufacturing plays an important part in that.

On the Deputy's point about the trade-off that could occur between environmental sustainability and the national competitiveness of countries at any point in time, the reason I say it "could occur" is that I believe there are many other sources of manufacturing activity and economic activity onto which we are moving that will be environmentally and economically sustainable. This is something in which nation states must play a role. The European Union can support it. It can support it through enabling the development of cross-continent infrastructure. It can also support it through supporting the universities and colleges in giving them the funding they need to have research in place in the correct areas. Fundamentally, however, national governments themselves must identify those areas and take a leadership role in that regard.

On the questions Deputy Kyne posed, I will begin by reference to his question on the referendum in the United Kingdom and whether I raised this with my colleague, the Minister of State at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Rt. Hon. Lidington, MP. I did not raise it directly in my meeting with him, although I have touched on it in other discussions with him. However, I have raised it publicly on three occasions: in the North of Ireland, in London and here in Dublin. I raised it in an address to the Institute of International and European Affairs, I raised it in an address in the Northern Ireland Assembly and I raised it substantively in a contribution I made to the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly. In addition, I raised it on Friday afternoon last in an address to the University in Edinburgh. Our approach to all of that can be framed in terms of two particular areas. First, we appreciate and recognise the right of any other member state to have a debate regarding its membership and terms of the European Union, given the number of times that we ourselves have done so. Second, the Government strongly believes that Ireland's future lies within the European Union and within the development of our membership of the European Union, and a full participation within it.

I am carefully emphasising that point to our neighbours and other stakeholders.

There have been more discussions on FTT in recent months but the Irish position remains unchanged. We believe that the implementation of something like this can only happen when all countries are participating within it, both in Europe and beyond. We will not be participating within such a framework because it would put Europe at a disadvantage vis-à-viswhat will happen elsewhere. We have many people employed in our own banks who are contributing to the economic recovery and we will be cognisant of that in any discussions that take place on this matter.

I was asked where the fourth railway package currently stands. We must ensure that we are competitive within any such environment, given our status. The Department of transport is playing the lead role in that regard to ensure that our infrastructural projects can be funded if other new activities are taking place across the continent of Europe.

I agree with Deputy Byrne's point. In the earlier discussion, I was struck by the number of people who said we would never get out of the bail-out programme and that we were condemned to participating in it for generations to come. Through the public's sacrifice, this Government has shown that that is not the case. We have shown that an exit is possible and even though we were the second eurozone country to enter such an arrangement, we will be the first one to leave it.

As regards the parties that are now criticising or questioning our actions, I need hardly tell the Deputy that if our country had decided to apply for a precautionary credit line, the same people would still be criticising us for doing so. We made a decision based on the economic interests of our country and where we are now, due to the huge changes society has made. Our deficit levels are coming down strongly. We have already implemented a deficit reduction programme of 18% of our national income during a period when the global economy was in recession. Since World War II, few countries in the developed world have done the same.

We had options but made this decision which we believe is in the best interests of our country. That is the sole reason the Taoiseach, Tánaiste, the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform made that decision. I hope this is another important stepping stone in delivering the appreciable economic growth we want everyone to see. In that way, the terrible pressure people are under will be lightened.

I have dealt with the question raised about the Ukraine and I was also asked about the difference between Frontex and the EEAS. Frontex is the organisation that assesses the work of various member states in protecting borders. The European External Action Service is a different body, although some of its work has similar consequences. It basically ensures that EU member states have a source of representation abroad in non-EU states. I have seen this at first hand in Africa where the work of the EEAS allows a better co-ordination of activities within the European institutions as well as supporting the work of national embassies.

Piracy and military security are issues that arise consistently at meetings I attend on maritime security and related legal areas that need to be resolved. We expect to see further proposals on these matters. Some Irish personnel are operating in a training capacity in Somalia and they will be focusing on these kinds of issues which will become more pressing.

I have already touched on the youth guarantee. As regards modernising public administration, a lot of that work will focus on the European institutions. Another aspect will examine how digital services can allow citizens to deal and engage better with national administrations. We need to make more progress in how our public services are organised and delivered in Ireland. It is work that we must undertake ourselves anyhow, regardless of the EU. I am sure the European institutions will be of help in allowing us to understand how to do such work.

I have covered Deputy Durkan's point on engines for economic recovery. I recall that on the last occasion he also referred to the digital economy when he spoke about market fragmentation. Due to their economies and scale, various countries do not have access to the same levels of digital infrastructure that other economies may have. The European Commission has published proposals concerning the idea of a connected continent. We wish to ensure that the status of operators and regulators in smaller member states is protected and that their work is recognised. In order for that kind of digital innovation to take place, we will initially have to improve the level of digital infrastructure. In many cases the responsibility for that sits with national governments.