Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Tánaiste for coming in to brief us this evening. I wish to ask him about the situation in Syria. We are all, rightly and justifiably, fixated with the challenges that we are facing in Ireland and across Europe but the level of human carnage in that country has escalated severely over the summer, which poses enormous challenges for the entire region. I ask the Tánaiste to comment on the role of the European Union in response to the escalation of violence in Syria.

The Tánaiste referred to our theme for the Presidency and our stance on the millennium development goals. I had the opportunity to visit Malawi with Trócaire over the summer which put a human face on the challenges facing that country and the wider region and on the work Ireland and Europe is doing there. We have set the objective of updating the millennium development goals, given that they expire in 2015. The Tánaiste spoke of the need for a more holistic approach to understanding what causes poverty and hunger and I ask him to outline the progress being made in that regard.

Discussions are taking place at the moment regarding President Van Rompuy's themes and the Tánaiste referred to the bilateral talks that Ireland is currently engaged in. In that context, I ask the Tánaiste to give some consideration to the role of the Parliament in all of this. For all of the criticism of unelected Eurocrats, we must acknowledge that President Von Rompuy has argued that we must address the issue of democratic legitimacy. That is not just an issue for Governments but also for Parliaments. I would welcome the Tánaiste's views on how the Oireachtas could be included in that at some point in the future.

On the issue of bank recapitalisation and the challenges we face in that regard, I find the exercise that is now taking place, with people trying to frame what may or may not come out of the current negotiations, intriguing. First, people argued that those negotiations would never happen but now they are happening. People are now saying, depending on the outcome of the negotiations, these are the criteria by which we will judge if they are successful. I put it to the Tánaiste that we would not be able to engage with the issue of how our banks might be recapitalised in a way that does not affect the Irish taxpayer without accessing the ESM, which was contingent on us passing the European Stability Mechanism treaty. Had we not passed that treaty and were not able to access that fund, our prospects of delivering any kind of progress in this area would be negligible. Given the comments made during the campaign in that regard, how helpful is the Tánaiste finding the passage of that treaty in the negotiations that are now taking place?