John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

I wish to share time with Deputies Ó Snodaigh and Connolly.

The EU March summit covered several areas, including the Growth and Stability Pact, the Bolkestein or Services Directive, European rules on state aid, the ban on exporting arms to China, the Iran nuclear programme, the mid-term review of the Lisbon Agenda, the European social model, climate change and energy supply.

In the summit's Presidency conclusions, No. 47, the EU leaders called for the building of an international thermonuclear experimental reactor nuclear fusion project in southern France and called on the Commission to "make every effort to achieve that aim, in particular by finalising the international agreement by July 2005". Japan is apparently the rival location for this nuclear reactor.

Did the Taoiseach raise any objection whatsoever to this further development of dangerous nuclear power or did the Government just meekly wave this through as it approved, for example, the lifting of the ban on arms exports to China? Will it cost €4.5 billion to build the plant and billions more euro to run it? Even under the most optimistic assumptions fusion will not be available as a commercial generating option until 2050.

The EU support for the bad option of nuclear energy makes a mockery of other goals in the Presidency conclusions which stress the need for the development of renewables and the pursuit of environmental sustainability. In particular, Greenpeace has highlighted in the past year that the EU's Framework Programme allocates €750 million for fusion research and development compared to €810 million for all other non-nuclear energy options combined. Do the Taoiseach and the Minister for Foreign Affairs share the view that the EU believes it will solve climate change problems by pursuing the nuclear option? Attaching the EURATOM Treaty as a protocol to the new constitution does not give us any real grounds for optimism.

The Presidency conclusions deal with the issue of climate change and the EU's need to achieve and surpass the Kyoto targets. However, Friends of the Earth and other environmental NGOs have expressed disappointment with the conclusions. Despite the recommendation of the EU Environment Ministers that industrialised countries should aim to cut greenhouse emissions by 15% to 30% by 2020 and by 68% to 80% by 2050, the Heads of State deleted the 2050 reference completely and left only the 2020 targets.

Friends of the Earth calls the 2020 target weak and ambiguous, stating that the 30% target reflects only what industrialised countries must achieve to prevent catastrophic climate change. What does the Minister think of the new targets? Is he embarrassed that Ireland has no strategy for combating climate change and that we are far overshooting the Kyoto targets? We are now 25% above 1990 levels although we should achieve 13% above 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.

The services directive, known as the Bolkestein directive, is a controversial plan to liberalise services, which is causing major problems in France and threatens to scupper the EU constitutional referendum. There are fears, for instance, that it would allow construction firms and other service providers to operate throughout the EU according to lowest legal labour standards, posing a direct threat to the European social model. Companies like Gama Construction might operate here which perhaps is what certain people want.

In particular, there are concerns regarding the country of origin rule, allowing service providers to work in other member states under the domestic rules of their own countries. This is a serious problem. Mr. McCreevy, the Commissioner for the Internal Market, who looked favourably on this directive, approved the compromise reached at the summit. I suspect, however, that it will be on the table again, perhaps after the French referendum on the European constitution.

At the summit the Taoiseach stated it was clear that changes were needed in the Bolkestein directive but that the services plan had not been withdrawn. Will the Minister for Foreign Affairs elaborate on the changes necessary to this directive? Is the Government in favour of the country of origin principle in the directive or are we supporting changes to that?

This summit carried out a mid-term review of the Lisbon strategy. At Lisbon, five years ago, the Taoiseach and other EU leaders pledged to make a decisive impact on the eradication of poverty in the EU by 2010 but that has not happened. Despite the wealth in the EU, 68 million people are living in poverty. Despite Ireland's dramatic growth, our cut in unemployment and the fact that we are the second richest state in the EU, we have the worst rate of relative poverty in the 25 EU member states.

The EU has a social inclusion strategy but is the Minister convinced that the EU has the political will to tackle these problems? The European Anti-Poverty Network welcomed the broadening in the emphasis at the summit from the competitiveness aspects of the Lisbon goals to social cohesion but it asks how the EU leaders will ensure an adequate focus on meeting the social cohesion objective. Is the Minister convinced that provision has been made for a more detailed development of the EU social agenda? How does the Taoiseach propose putting our house — this country — in order?

Will the Government take any heed of evidence from other EU countries, particularly the Scandinavian countries, that different tax and welfare schemes could make a major impact on our poverty levels? Ireland has one of the lowest levels of social protection expenditure in Europe. Has the Government taken on board any of the findings of last year's ESRI report, Why is Relative Income Poverty so High in Ireland?, which found that the introduction of a Danish-style welfare system in Ireland would have a very substantial impact on reducing the number of people at risk of poverty?

With regard to concerns about the referendum in France, if we want to bring the EU closer to the people we must respect democracy in the form of the conclusions reached by the British and the French. Often we do not respect democracy and ask people to vote again because we do not like their first decision, but that is not democracy.

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