Dominic Hannigan (Meath East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for that comprehensive introduction to this year's national reform programme. As he said, it is a cross-committee issue, and we are lucky to be joined Deputy Michael Colreavy and Senator Michael Comiskey, who may take part in the proceedings and the questioning.

I spoke at a conference yesterday in Westminster about the European semester, where all the talk was about yesterday's statement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, that the UK will now pursue an agenda of full employment. We have set employment targets for those aged between 20 and 64 of 69% to 71%, which is actually less than the EU target of 75%. Bearing in mind the agenda across Europe in regard to employment, does the Minister of State think we are being a bit pessimistic? Could we potentially do more with those targets?

I mentioned earlier that when we invited the Committee of the Regions to a meeting of this committee, one of the questions its members asked also related to targets. They were concerned that the targets were expressed at a national level and they wondered whether some sort of regional targets could be included so that we could see some sort of attempt to address the issue of balanced development across the regions. Will the Minister of State comment on that also?