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

I welcome Mr. O'Riordan and thank him for his presentation. We recently had a debate during Private Members' time in the Dáil during which it was noted that, while the economy has been improving, there was some concern regarding certain aspects of our society. In some way, Mr. O'Riordan touched on this when speaking on the employment and social indicators. The Government had a role in pursuing that agenda last year during its Presidency. There was debate on the country-specific recommendations last time, and this is the first year in which we have had those recommendations since we came out of the bailout. From where I am sitting, I do not think they have caused a lot of trouble. There has been strong liaison with the Government in terms of the things they are working on anyway. Many of them are part of our programme for government and are a requirement. Some of them were laid down previously by the Troika - for instance, the legal services Bill. Many of them are part of our processes in Government in improving low pay and that whole area. Have other countries experienced problems? There was reference to more national accountability. Has there been a huge demand for this within Ireland? I do not see it being debated in Parliament and I have not seen it raised as a specific issue or problem. Many of the country-specific recommendations, if not all of them, would have, I imagine, cross-party agreement in Parliament in terms of what they are about, which is improving the lot of the people and such issues.

Areas of reform were mentioned. There are two in particular. Reference was made to making pensions and social protection more sustainable. What is called the pensions time bomb is a cross-Europe issue and I suppose it is something that needs to be tackled in this country. I am sure other countries also have particular concerns about this. The second area is improvement of business investment conditions. With the co-operation of the German government and the German Minister for Finance, an €800 million package was announced a couple of weeks ago for SME investment. We have gone a long way towards ensuring that issue is sorted. Access to finance is an issue that has been raised consistently with regard to SMEs. Hopefully that package will alleviate their concerns.