Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Ms Catherine Day and Ms Barbara Nolan before the joint committee and have a few questions. What has the Commission learned in respect of the European semester process over the three years? Is an ongoing fine-tuning of the system under way? Second, on the country-specific recommendations, has the Commission made recommendations in the past regarding the banking sector, which obviously had a huge role to play in the economic problems experienced across Europe in recent years? Stress-testing is under way; has it been part of the process?

Regarding Ms Day's comments that the markets have been judging the problems in the European processes, does she believe the markets are likely to be less jittery because of the European Semester, the processes put in place and the fact that countries will get used to those?

Ms Day commented earlier that the Irish people passed the stability treaty in 2012 and accepted the rules and regulations. Some people may be surprised by that. People like to know that countries have to adhere to rules and that we cannot have the runaway budgets we had in the past. That would be a common view across Europe.