Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)

I propose to take Questions Nos. 76 and 96 together.

In so far as my Department's area of responsibility is concerned, key issues covered by the Lisbon Agenda relate to establishing a European area for research and innovation, creating a friendly environment for starting up and developing innovative businesses, especially small and medium enterprises, developing an active EU employment policy, developing the information society, measures for completing a fully operational internal market and certain company law and corporate governance measures. While the Lisbon Agenda is supported by a series of sectoral targets and structural indicators against which EU performance is measured by reference to the average performance of member states, it is not based on country specific targets. It is a matter for each member state to take appropriate action and develop its own mix of policies with a view to contributing to the EU-wide goal of the Lisbon Agenda.

Implementation of the agenda is an incremental process across a wide range of diverse policy areas. However, my Department has been and will continue to be proactively engaged in pursuing policies in the areas under the agenda for which it is responsible that are designed to contribute to the achievement of the overall Lisbon goal. The key actions include completing the Internal Market. Ireland's commitment to the Internal Market is clear from the significant progress with regard to the implementation of internal market measures in recent years, moving from a ranking of 13th in the league table of member states in the European Commission's Internal Market scoreboard in mid-2003 to a position of joint third in the latest scoreboard published by the Commission in July. Ireland's transposition deficit of 1.2% is ahead of the target of 1.5% set by the European Council in the context of implementation of the Lisbon Agenda.

A key component of the agenda is the creation of the European research area and the European Council has set a target of average overall spending on research and development of 3% of GDP by 2010, and with two thirds of this new investment coming from the private sector. Ireland's investment in research and development is approximately 1.4% of gross national product, which is below the EU average. However, the recently published Irish Action Plan for Promoting Investment in R&D, dated August 2004, responds to the earlier recommendations of the Commission in this area. It sets a challenging but achievable target of 2.5% of GNP spend on research and development by 2010 and proposes a range of actions to achieve this.

With regard to employment, the targets set at Lisbon for 2010 are an overall employment rate of 70%, a female employment rate of 60% and an employment of older workers of 50%. The European employment strategy is the tool used for the implementation of the employment objectives of the Lisbon Agenda. The National Employment Action Plan 2003-2005, prepared by my Department, is Ireland's response to the European employment strategy. Ireland had achieved an overall employment rate of 65.4% at the end of 2003. The employment rate for women stood at 55.8% while that of older workers stood at 49%. By contrast, the average employment rates for the 25 EU member states for the corresponding period are an overall employment rate of 62.9% and 55% and 40.2% for female and older workers respectively.

Measures in a range of other areas such as enterprise and SME policy to improve the administration of business start-ups, implementation of the charter for small enterprises, e-business, development of a national e-business strategy, regulatory reform and company law are also relevant.

See this speech in context