Councillor Neale Richmond:

A range of issues have been raised and I will not go through each issue but I will try to get them all together in a couple of collective points. If I do not get to them all committee members can always come back to me. Deputy Durkan raised the matter of targets, the failings in the Lisbon strategy and the matter of identifying targets that were missed. This feeds in to why this meeting and other recent meetings here are so important. This is a mid-term review and therefore it is a chance, halfway through the process, to pull up the Commission and, by default, member state Governments, to point out where the direction is off course. The review is important to identify this.

European Movement Ireland would welcome the opportunity to do that on an annual basis, but whether that is practical I am unsure. I will leave that the hands of the committee and the European Commission to decide.

Reference was made to the areas where the strategy is on-target and off-target. My colleague from Eurofound will go into more detail on the matter. The strategy is close to the targets on education, climate change and energy, but not in respect of employment, research and development and poverty reduction. These are the three areas where there needs to be an increased focus.

Senator Burke raised the question of where to prioritise. We need to prioritise the relationship between those in research and development and those looking to employ people who are coming out of research and development to try to get things aligned. I realise this is discussed as part of a range of issues. We need people to be doing certain courses at third level. Then they can go into the jobs that will provide the services that people need and that people will use to get the economy thriving. It is no different to this strategy. The type of outreach we strongly advocate involves going out to the chambers of commerce, large multinationals, SMEs working in Ireland and all member states as well as the third level and second level institutions to which Councillor Sheahan referred. They are often neglected but they are very much a part of this as well. The individuals involved are vital too. It is difficult to reach out to all 4.2 million people in Ireland, let alone 500 million in the European Union, but a representative aim would be ideal.

I am pleased that the one region-specific question came from Deputy O'Reilly. My late mother was from Cootehill and I have a little knowledge of Cavan. As Councillor Byrne said, the implementation of broadband is absolutely vital. I come from Dublin and the standard in Dublin is not up to scratch internationally, but outside Dublin it is completely sub-par. That should be at the forefront especially for small economies like Ireland that are reliant on the technology sector and light industries.

Reference was made to the path to recovery and why we need to be more forward-looking. Much of the first five years of the strategy has been set against the backdrop of the fiscal crisis or the years of austerity, as Councillor Sheahan put it. We need to move on from that. People have announced in various ways that Ireland has reached the end of the austerity road and that the country is in recovery mode. That is not necessarily true for the rest of the European Union or specific member states but that is the footing we need to be on. We need to look beyond that. We will not always be in a fiscal crisis or if we are going to be perpetually in a fiscal crisis then things are going to get far more difficult for everyone. We need to look beyond this and decide on the strategy we need regardless of the financial backdrop. We need to decide on the key building blocks for it.

We welcome the additional scrutiny role the Seanad is planning. Senator Leyden referred to this. One of the strong points in the programme for Government in 2011 was the onus on the various Oireachtas committees to examine all legislative measures emerging which are important to each committee. European Movement Ireland is a little concerned about the lack of discourse between various Oireachtas committees and Ministers when it comes to summits and Council meetings. We believe the amount of pre-summit and post-summit briefings are not necessarily up to scratch in other committees although they are very good in this committee.