Dermot Ahern (Louth, Fianna Fail)

On the Lisbon Agenda, oversight lies with the Department of the Taoiseach at assistant secretary level. It is obviously continually examined by the Cabinet sub-committee on European affairs. The Deputy referred to research and development. In the examination of that issue in terms of whether it is GNP or GDP, GNP is a more realistic target from our point of view because of the transfers. As the Deputy knows, it relates to counting.

Regarding pushing out the agenda, our average growth in gross expenditure on research and development is 4.5% between 2001 and 2003 and 4.8% between 2003 and 2005. If one examines the matter from the GNP perspective, expenditure rose from 1.3% in 2001 to 1.45% in 2005. GNP is a more appropriate measure for us given the type of economy we have.

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