Kathryn Reilly (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

What is the Minister of State’s response to the fiscal council’s statement that the SP 2015 is falling short of the requirement on a forward-looking basis and that Government adjustments go against the level and spirit of the expenditure benchmark rule, that there is a considerable risk of non-compliance in 2016, that the deficit projections in the SP 2015 do not provide a useful picture of the fiscal position after 2016 and fall short of the requirements envisaged in the budgetary framework directive? Does the Minister of State agree with those comments?

The Minister of State mentioned the sticking point of the mandatory relocation mechanism on immigration. I am worried by comments from the Hungarian Government that it is building a 4 m high fence on its border with Serbia to keep out migrants. That can be seen as part of a wider anti-immigrant campaign by the prime minister.

He described the efforts to resettle migrants around the EU as insane and said all migrants were terrorists. Has this situation been discussed with the Minister of State's counterparts in Hungary and Europe?

Finally, I return to the country-specific recommendation on strengthened child care provision. That was also a country-specific recommendation in 2014 and in the summary assessment then it said that no progress had been made to improve access to more affordable and full-time child care. It is now one of the recommendations for this year. Mr. Seamus Coffey was here before the Minister of State and he mentioned that some of these recommendations do not really include proposals on what to do or concrete figures. What action will be taken by the Government to address the issue of affordable full-time child care? There is a danger that it might be left there and that we will keep seeing every year that no or limited progress has been made.