Dominic Hannigan (Meath East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We will resume in public session. On behalf of the committee I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, who has special responsibility for European affairs. He will brief the committee on the draft national reform programme update for 2014. The Government is consulting with the Oireachtas on the draft document in advance of its consideration by the Cabinet and its submission to the European Commission in Brussels, which must take place in April.

The preparation of a national reform programme is a key input for each member state as part of the annual European semester process for economic policy co-ordination. Ireland is now participating fully in the 2014 European semester process and this is the first time we will submit a full national reform programme. Today's meeting is welcome in the context of the European semester, and as part of the evolving engagement with the Oireachtas, to ensure the necessary democratic accountability and legitimacy of the process.

I will ask the Minister of State to address the committee in a minute. Before I do so, I wish to inform him that we have just had a very useful session with Councillor Fiona O'Loughlin, a representative of the Committee of the Regions. She was kind enough to give her committee's views of the national reform programme. No doubt a copy of that presentation will be made available to him. Some of the comments that she made will be raised by some of this committee's members, because we are trying to ensure they have an input into the programme.