Mr. Seán Kelly:

Gabhaim míle buíochas as ucht an cuireadh agus comhghairdeas as ucht an díospóireacht a eagrú. I will confine myself to the committees in which I am involved. We each have two committees. I am the only Irish member of the ITRE committee, which is on technology, research and energy, and INTA, which is on trade.

Ms Nolan outlined the stimulus package by Mr. Juncker. On behalf of the ITRE committee, I have recently been appointed as rapporteur to produce a report for our committee on the stimulus package, which is a big role. It is a serious role and would give Ireland an important input into it. That should also help Ireland's cause. It has been pointed out that this is not really about investing public money, it is about leveraging private money. The evidence shows that Europe is awash with money and many people do not know where to invest it because the interest rates are so low. If this can work, and based on other situations they are confident that it will, it will make a significant difference. We will hopefully benefit as much as other countries in Europe.

I have been involved with the digital Single Market over the last few years because I was rapporteur for the data protection regulation. We made our report and it was passed less than a year ago. We are now waiting for the Council to finalise its arrangements. When that is done, we will go into trilogue. We hope to have that done by the end of this year, which will help in the area of certainty, legally in particular, in relation to the Single Market. There are great opportunities there. The benefit of Europe is a Single Market and now the emphasis is being put on the digital Single Market, which is of major importance, especially in trying to grow businesses and the development of trade online, etc. There is a great deal there which will hopefully be completed.

The new Commission is taking a practical approach in two ways. First is the way the President of the Commission has constructed his Commissioners. It would not be beneficial to have 28 doing their own thing, breaking them up into little silos, with a vice-president in charge. Bringing forward less legislation also seems to be eminently practical, giving credence to the oft-quoted necessity of recognising the principle of subsidiarity, only to do in Europe what must be done in Europe. That is why we will probably see less but more effective legislation over the next few years. The banking union has been a great success. Not enough credit has been given for it. As was pointed out, the stress tests have been done and most banks are now operating under particular rules, so the chances of them going bust are greatly reduced and the taxpayer will not have to pick up the bill at the end of the day. That should be beneficial as we move forward.

The other area in the ITRE committee is energy. That is a big area. The Russian situation has focused minds in Europe on the need to diversify supply and to get security of supply. Many things will happen in that regard over the next few years. That is very important for Ireland. I have a great deal to do with it, both in terms of looking at how it can be done and creating connectivity. If we had the money, we would have interconnectors both for energy and for electricity right across Europe. It will happen some day. Part of that investment programme that President Juncker is talking about would be great, particularly for an island nation like ours.

TTIP has been mentioned. I am in favour of TTIP until I see the final package. It is a huge opportunity and we should not stop that opportunity from being explored. People have been talking about transparency, and rightly so, but there is more transparency in TTIP than in any other trade discussion we have had, and we will continue to be more transparent. It is a bit like CAP in the last legislature. It was CAP, CAP, CAP, CAP, CAP. Now it is all about TTIP. The chances of anything getting under the radar unscrutinised are very little. Huge movements have been made on the ISDS. That is a good thing. I am the rapporteur for the free trade agreement with Singapore. That is almost finalised. It will be a great opportunity for Ireland because it will lead to other free trade agreements with the other ASEAN countries, which have about 500 million people between them.