Mr. Vjaceslavs Dombrovskis:

I am pleased to note the Deputy and I have a remarkable coincidence of interests. Ireland has our full support in seeking to preserve the size of the Common Agricultural Policy budget.

At the peak of the recession in Latvia unemployment reached 20% of the population. It is three or four years since we reached that peak, but employment growth remains sluggish and the rate of unemployment is still between 14% and 16%, depending on how one counts it. The level of youth unemployment has been declining very slowly. With the youth unemployment rate much higher than the average unemployment rate, it is a priority for us.

To address the third area identified by the Deputy, we had very similar challenges to those faced by Ireland when the second largest Latvian bank failed, largely due to its inability to pay down large syndicate loans to the international financial markets, whatever they are. Latvian taxpayers have taken on the full burden of recapitalising the bank in question, resulting in the public debt increasing by more than four times as a percentage of gross domestic product. Since 2007, Latvian sovereign debt has increased from less than 10% of GDP to 42% or 43% of GDP. Latvia also fully supports all elements of the banking union, as outlined in the original report, including common deposit insurance and supervision by a single authority.

I am very much inspired by Deputy Bernard Durkan's speech about the problems of Europe. It is important to realise, as I did in my previous life as a professional economist, that there cannot be a single currency without solidarity on sovereign debt, bank provisions and many other matters. The position is exactly as the Deputy stated; the system cannot work without adopting a "one for all, all for one" approach. This is what the European Union should be about. I fully share the Deputy's vision.