Ms Alice-Mary Higgins:

I will take a stab at responding to this wide variety of issues.

First, we thank the Deputies and the Senator for engaging genuinely and strongly with our presentation and our submission. While as individual organisations we may have very strong and specific views on some of the questions that have been raised, we may not be in a position to state that this is the view of the Better Europe Alliance. The nature of our evolving coalition is broad. We are covering a number of issues but we are not covering all issues as yet, though we would be very happy to respond as individual organisations to the representatives on any of these issues.

To address some of the first questions from Deputy Kyne - and it also links into Deputy Hannigan's point - we agree that the fiscal compact criteria should be sufficient in themselves. We were very clear in our submission that we do not think it is appropriate to seek further binding ceilings on expenditure. Our concern in that regard relates not just to the changing economic and macroeconomic context, but also to the balance within the semester process as a whole. The semester process as a whole is delivering our commitments in terms of fiscal stability but is also delivering our commitments in terms of smart, sustainable, inclusive growth under the Europe 2020 strategy. We are concerned that proposals such as that would compromise the ability to deliver the kind of smart, sustainable, inclusive development that is the ultimate overall goal. That may address some of Deputy Kyne's questions about what kind of proofing or processes are in place.

The important thing is that we have binding targets, which we must meet, but the way in which we meet them should be tested to ensure that a short-term target is never allowed to undermine long-term social sustainability or environmental and other targets. When we talk about practical tools such as the social impact assessments, environmental impact, a stronger application of the regulatory processes we have, and gender mainstreaming - which is pushed strongly from a European level - these are tools to ensure that any measures deriving from the first recommendation on fiscal targets are put through the filter to ensure that they are not taking us a step backwards on the other track of the semester process, which is, of course, Europe 2020. Those tools are available to Departments and it is important that there is also a coordinated approach to employing them.

I very much welcome, although it is somewhat outside the scope of our alliance, Deputy Heydon's comments on budgetary process. Similarly, there is scope for a much wider use of tools and debate within economic decision-making.

In terms of some of the specifics of child care, for example, we regard child care investment as an example of medium-term investment. It is an investment in safe, sustainable and inclusive growth. It is not simply expenditure, it is investment, because it has a huge delivery in terms of increasing participation in the workforce. That is an example of where short-term targets around debt should not be allowed to undermine long-term delivery of something that is a priority across Europe and particularly in Ireland. I may be straying into the views of the National Women's Council, so I apologise if that is the case, but the question of child benefit is important in responding to the increased costs to inflation and to the large cutbacks in the area of child benefit. In general in Ireland we should not pit one measure that supports children and families against another measure that supports children and families. We have a collective job to do as a nation to move forward on that. I also agree that a year of early childhood education is extremely important. It is an essential step and an affordable, manageable, costed step that could be taken. However, I would also agree that early childhood education is important developmentally for children and for families and is not simply an employment measure. For example, in terms of child care we must also look at out-of-hours care. It is also important - and this is something that may be missing from the current corporate social responsibilities, CSRs, which we hope will be more reflected in the next ones - to recognise that care, be it elder care or care for children, makes an economic and social contribution, which is separate from the facilitation of employment but which has contribution and value in itself.

I will pass some of the environmental issues over to my colleague and also some taxation issues. However, in terms of taxation we must look to the idea of progressivity. When we talk about widening the tax base, progressivity must be a core within that. For example, when we look at the proportion of people who are paying a large percentage of the income tax, they have a larger percentage of the income. We also know from a gender perspective that a significant number of women, 50%, are earning €20,000 or less in Ireland, so the reality is that we have a huge population on a low income. We would like to see the employment targets within the semester process linked more strongly to the quality of employment because we have seen the depletion of wages, which has greatly affected women in particular but all sectors of society and most sectors of employment. That is the quality dimension within employment, to ensure that our achievement of the employment targets is also contributing to the achievement of our poverty reduction targets.

I might ask some of my colleagues to answer some of the other questions. I would like to signal to members that we are discussing the issue of taxation as an alliance. We will be having an event to look at the intersection between environmental taxation and the issues of social equity and inclusion.