Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests for appearing before the committee. I appreciate the setting out of the work programme and the month-by-month review. It is this review on which I wish to concentrate. To what extent is it expected that review will be monitored on a monthly basis with specific objectives to be achieved throughout the course of the year, bearing in mind that one month of the year is a holiday month and another month is almost gone for breaks and individual member states holidays, etc.? That will have the effect of crushing the review into ten months as opposed to 12 months. Arising from that my question is obvious. My criticism in the past has been that we have great aspirations but achievement of objectives is a critical factor. If this is to be done on a monthly basis, will it be marked off and the achievements recorded for all and sundry? That is in line with the semester.

In regard to the €315 billion investment programme, the self same criteria must apply. It must show advances on a month-by-month basis and on a year-to-year basis. There is no sense in having a grand objective that looks well and is good and is necessary unless it achieves its specific targets within a specified time and if it does not we need to know why. The question is whether it will achieve its targets and how soon we can expect to see the manifestation of that investment programme throughout all the countries of the European Union, including in those countries that are island nations and, effectively, cut off from the mainland of Europe, recognising the fact that they have special requirements.

The digital Single Market is an issue that is very important. What is the shortest possible time within which we can expect to see the achievement of the various objectives in that particular area?

The next issue I wish to raise is European wide taxation. I think we have concerns about that. I agree in principle that the country that generates the profit for a particular company, regardless of where that company comes from, for example foreign direct investment, is where the taxation should take place. Unfortunately, we have been maligned to a certain extent by people who had practices that were not exactly pristine. As a nation we were blamed repeatedly for benefitting from a special tax haven status that we did not have.

The European agenda on migration has already been mentioned. There is something we need to do in this area also. At European Union level we need a general policy on migration which should be evenly spread across the European Union without exception. That is a difficult thing to do, particularly when there is an influx of refugees from some corners at present.