Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The summit is where the challenge report from the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council is presented to Government. Our action plan on competitiveness will be the response to the NCPC's report. Essentially, Dr. Frances Ruane has the National Competitiveness and Productivity Council, which is supported by a lot of Government Departments and has independent members. They provide a challenge report to Government every year. I escalated the response to that last year. We had our first competitive summit, with a wide range of Ministers and the Taoiseach meeting together to get a laser focus on the issue of competitiveness. I am very much aware of international pressures and where we are in terms of the index and the independent competitive yearbook. We have a lot of work to do, particularly on infrastructure. We have our plan completed now. We are waiting for the final negotiations of the national development plan which I expect to happen over the coming weeks. Once they have concluded, it is important we come forward with our action plan for competitiveness at that point. It needs to have clout and money behind it. That is the critical thing. I want it to have credibility. It is important we have the NDP first.