Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have dealt with the public service, it is not on the agenda. It is excluded from the mandate and the negotiators do not intend to open it up. That is as categorical as we can get.

We spend most of our time planning how we will deal with potential displacement. Some 5% of jobs created by Enterprise Ireland and IDA are displaced every year. Many of the Enterprise Ireland programmes are about introducing lean production processes; encouraging companies to involve themselves in innovation; improving the management and leadership capability of companies; getting them to look at markets where they could expand should they be under pressure in some other market. Enterprise Ireland spends a great deal of time dealing with its existing base of companies and looking at how they can better position themselves either to deal with a threat or an opportunity. The same is true increasingly now of the IDA companies. IDA invests increasingly in transformation agendas, which are very similar to those sort of EI programmes, looking at how to win new mandates and protect jobs in the areas they are in. We are very actively engaged and have a great many proven policy instruments to deal with displacement should it arise from this source.

I invite members to read the chapters on regulatory co-operation. I probably do not have time to quote them for members. They absolutely set out categorically that there will be no dilution in the standards on either side. The US is as adamant as the EU that will be no reductions in its standards.

It is explicit in the text that there will be no undermining of the democratic mandate and right of parliaments to set regulations. What is being looked at is areas of good practice so that if Europe is introducing a new regulation, information on its impact will be shared in order that people can anticipate and prepare for the new standards expected. For example, if the fat content of an item is tested in Ireland, there can be mutual acceptance across Europe of the accuracy of that measure of fat content such that the item does not have to be re-tested elsewhere to obtain the same result. This is the type of unnecessary work we are seeking to remove. That is very significant. Most of the things that are barriers to trade may have been used as protectionism but many of them are about having to replicate costly proofs of what a product is doing rather than about standards. This is where the regulatory convergence will occur. These regulations come under the heading of mutual recognitions. A good example would be an architect and a mechanism by which the qualification on both sides can be recognised. This is the type of issue on which convergence is sought, not to say that an architect can be just a draftsman, thereby undermining a standard.