Brendan Ryan (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

President Juncker, in his speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg today, reiterated the point made by the French President last week regarding a move towards a fiscal as well as monetary union and the possibility of introducing a new fiscal compact. The European Commission is specifically championing ideas such as a European monetary fund, a eurozone budget, a European Union finance Minister, the introduction of euro bonds and a range of other measures to support a fiscal union. I mention this because I was taken with Mr. Casey's point that the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council is not seeking counter-cyclical economic tools but wishes to reach a steady state, which is the ideal position.

As the Government enters negotiations on the future of Europe, which I presume will ramp up after the German general election in two weeks, does the fiscal advisory council have any advice to give on the major structural issue with the Irish economy? The economic difficulties we experienced in recent years were caused by a variety of factors, one of which was that the economy was out of kilter with the German economy. We lost competitiveness and our growth rates and fiscal and monetary rules were very different from those of Germany. The Irish economy, with average growth rates of 5%, is still in a different position from the eurozone economy where average growth is 2.2%. Irrespective of what happens with Brexit, the economy will remain separate from the eurozone economy as a result of the influence of the British and American economies. Will the fiscal advisory council advise the Government on what position it should take in the forthcoming negotiations on the new fiscal compact? The proposals for the new compact are becoming much more tangible and will be negotiated in the next year or 18 months. We are not in a steady state where we must meet the fiscal compact rules of 2012. We are moving towards having new rules. Is there a European federation of fiscal advisory councils or another forum at which this issue is debated? Given that this is a fiscal advisory issue, who is managing this aspect of the future of Europe negotiations?