Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

I commend the Government and the Minister of State for debating this document. It would be useful for us to reflect on how we got here and why we are examining this document at this time.

The first European-wide attempt to integrate, modernise and create the Single Market goes back to the 1980s. The Commission, under the Presidency of Jacques Delors, and a commissioner, Lord Caulfield, identified approximately 315 legislative instruments that needed to be implemented under the new system of qualified majority voting, provided for under the Single European Act, to create the foundation of the Single Market. It was driven by the Commission and it had a clear focus. Somebody was in charge and the Commission was ultimately responsible for its delivery thought the institutions of the EU, which was successful.

In marked contrast, the Lisbon process, which started life in 2000 during the Portuguese Presidency, relies on governments to drive the process, not the Commission. Within this lies our problem. No one is in charge of driving the Lisbon Agenda. In the scoresheet produced by Alistair Murray of the Centre for European Reform, he gave the overall process a rating of C plus. Ireland and Sweden were among the noted heroes, with Italy a noted villain. In three categories, Ireland and other member states were deemed to be of villain status, displaying poor performance, namely in the areas of modernising social protection, climate change and the natural environment. In one area, the business start-up environment, we were considered one of the winners, a position we shared with Slovenia.

In the refocus of the Lisbon Agenda in March 2005, there was a necessary but reluctant focus on the poor performing economic indicators in most of the member states. This did not take place in all member states and Ireland is not the only one performing poorly. This focus is understandable in the effort to get our growth rate to the required 3%. There is a danger that our success in the private sector, for which the Government does not have responsibility, will allow a degree of complacency to waft over to the public sector, for which the Government has unique responsibility. I detect this tendency running through the tone of the Minister of State's speech. In his contribution, my colleague in the Green Party will refer to the danger of ignoring the environmental and sustainable development dimensions of the original Lisbon Agenda. This will have real costs for the economy of this country, not to mention the environment, the landscape and the health of our people. I refer to specific fines for non-compliance with Kyoto emissions standards. Other speakers will address this.

The focus on the agenda raises certain questions. Though this document includes the kitchen sink, what remains in the garage and the contents of the shed, it is most welcome. Who is in charge of implementing this programme? An indication is given on page six that the Department of the Taoiseach is responsible for co-ordinating this. The Department of the Taoiseach is also responsible for the co-ordination of the national development plan yet when I ask which civil servant is in charge of the team and driving the national development plan on a daily basis, I am told someone is doing it in addition to other duties. These aspirations, no more than the original Lisbon Agenda, cannot be taken seriously unless a senior civil servant has the criteria of the Lisbon Agenda and the Irish scoreboard as his or her sole focus. I invite the Minister of State to list how many people are doing the job in his response. How many people are helping him or her? What is the reporting relationship to the various line Departments? Two Departments are mentioned, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment as the lead macro-economic Department, and the Department of the Taoiseach.

Today, the ICTU decided to postpone participation in social partnership. A key element of the Lisbon Agenda is on hold and may remain on hold for some time. We have slipped behind the Lisbon Agenda because, unlike the Cockfield and Delors experience, no one is driving it. This is at the heart of a contradiction in some parties in the House. Some of these wish increased national participation and sovereignty and less participation in Europe. At the same time they bemoan the fact we are not achieving the targets set in the Lisbon Agenda. We must find a democratically acceptable mechanism that recognises the responsibility of national governments to deliver and puts in place a system of constant peer reviewing of achievement at the level of national government and the Commission. The Minister of State can address these questions in his response.

I refer to the role of the European Union in this area. When these reform programmes are reviewed, the Commission should grant daily responsibility to someone for chart marking progress on all 25 member states. It is ridiculous to rely on an independent research unit based in the United Kingdom. This should be at the centre of our aims at national and European level. Unless someone drives this project in a coherent and consistent manner this document will remain aspirational.

The focus is primarily on economics and the focus on employment growth is very strong. It is anticipated our labour market needs will be met by natural population growth and immigration, if necessary. It ignores the fact that we still have long-term unemployment and that some available jobs could be done by some of the 27,000 unemployed people. There is no indication of outreach to these people other than contact by FÁS if they are out of a job for more than six months. There is no indication of how they might be returned to the system. We ignore at our peril an economic system that can attract outsiders of whatever nationality or colour into our labour market, bypassing those who cannot participate in the labour market, perhaps through no fault of their own. People live in communities, not markets, and the marketplace is part of that community.

Denmark and the Netherlands are of similar size and population to Ireland and we ignore at our peril the social disintegration occurring in parts of their societies and the turmoil generated. These countries pursued the same shortsighted policies we are facing. They would advise us to examine what they did with guest workers rather than new citizens, with additional workers rather than contributors to society. Their employment focus was on performance in the workplace rather than family integration into the community and how the children settled in schools. If the children do not settle in school and do not learn the English to a degree of proficiency that enables them to qualify through the educational system they will not be able to participate in the Irish labour market when they come of age.

Denmark has had a similar experience. It had a generous social welfare system, to which everyone contributed, and low unemployment as we have. The unemployment protection system was a safety net, not a bed on which to lie. The children of foreign workers who failed to learn Danish and participate in the education system could comfortably lie on such a social protection system. This was their entitlement as residents and, in some cases, citizens. This created great social tensions in the country. If lessons can be learned from the two referenda on the European constitution, for which the Minister of State has considerable responsibility, social dissatisfaction was identified by internal commentators as one of the factors that led to the defeat in two countries. This was partly due to the failure to integrate immigrants into the society rather than the workforce. It is a lesson we ignore at our peril.

Many Irish people would love to work but they are forced to remain at home to mind children. This is not voluntarily chosen.

Dr. John FitzGerald of the ESRI has said the problem of child care provision in Ireland under its current format will get worse rather than better in the immediate short term of the next five to ten years, and I will explain the reason for that. According to the research done by the ESRI, invariably people who mind children in an informal economy are women without leaving certificate qualifications. They are older or under-educated women who help their sister, aunt or whoever with child care. That cohort is declining in demographic terms as we speak and more women, as is evident from the statistics in the document produced, are entering the workforce at a child-bearing age. There will be a greater demand, therefore, from people within the paid workforce for child care and a drop in supply of those who would be available in whatever formal contractual arrangement that might arise to provide that child care. Those are the facts, unlike the fact Deputy O'Donnell attempted to put on the record making a prediction about something she had not even read.

We have identified, in our child care document published last week, the necessity to give parents choice. Unlike the Progressive Democrats, we say that a child care system must have at its centre the well-being of the child. We should enable parents to become parents. They should not be the servants of the marketplace but contributors to it. Those of us who have the privilege of being parents, and it is a privilege, must be able to use that time in as productive and careful a way as possible but this Government, with all the riches it has had over the past eight years, has blown it. The idea of giving somebody a grant to convert their garage into a play centre because it is in the private sector and there are no ongoing costs is short-term and failed policy because when that person decides they want to hang up their boots, the facility which we, the taxpayers, helped to create goes with them. Child care places should be centred on the primary school campus. There should be only one trip to school in the morning, with the pre-school provision and possibly space for the child care provision as well. All of that will cost a great deal of money and it will probably take about five years to implement. We should be honest with ourselves and the electorate in terms of what the roll-out is likely to be but if we do not do it, we will mislead them.

I want to highlight the complacency in this area, which is understandable given the spectacular figures for which some Members in this House can claim credit. In his contribution the Minister of State referred to the fact that 85% of the people in the 20 to 24 age group achieved upper secondary school level qualification and a majority of them achieved third level qualification also. Does the Minister or any of his colleagues in Government know what happened to the 15% who did not get past junior certificate level? Do we know where they are, what their prospects for getting a decent job are or if they can be contacted to invite them back into the work system so they can be educated? Until we can answer for 100% of children going through the system, we are not up to the task of what Lisbon is holding out for us. I will conclude with one final thought. The reality is that this Government and society has a greater and more accurate up to date record of the health of our beef and dairy herds than we have of our citizens.

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