Dominic Hannigan (Meath East, Labour)
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Thank you very much Mr. Richelle. We are delighted that you have taken the time out of our your schedule to join us today. We think it is a very important initiative by the Commission to proceed with the identification and inclusion of the social indicators. The committee intends to provide the Commission with a political dialogue statement after we have heard from you. We will also be having other meetings with members of Irish non-governmental organisations, such as the Irish National Association of the Unemployed, the European Anti-Poverty Network Ireland, the National Women's Council and our youth groups to talk about how they see these indicators potentially working. After those meetings, we will be providing the Commission with a paper.

I note what you said about sanctions and that there will be thresholds and triggers, but that nothing will trigger any consequences. I think that is unfortunate. There are lessons for the Commission from the Stability and Growth Pact, which had many criteria and benchmarks that were then ignored by various countries across the Union. That was one of the reasons the six pack and the two pack were brought in. It would be good if we saw some sort of assistance in help countries that failed to meet certain thresholds.

You have taken time to arrive at the indicators that are contained in the paper but how set in stone are they at this stage? How possible is it to expand them, especially in the area of social exclusion? There is reference to equal pay rates but what are your thoughts about widening the indicators? We could look at the participation on women on State boards, pay gaps, the impact of the recession on the disability sector and whether they are suffering more than more than most, on other sectors such as the LGBT sector. What about our ethnic communities and the Roma community? Are we looking at any indicators on exclusion by those groups due to the economic crisis? Is there a way that we can feed in some kind of indicators to reflect their experience of the crisis? Perhaps you can comment on that, but first I will ask committee members to contribute at this stage. I call on Deputy Murphy.