Eoin Ryan (Dublin South East, Fianna Fail)

He did not. When he spoke about it for the first time in the European Parliament last year, he said that it did not have, to use the term, a snowball's chance in Hell of being passed in its original form. He decided to put it before the Parliament for amendment, which has happened. It returns to the Commission and later to the Parliament. This was a good way of doing it and it was a good compromise. Serious challenges to the European Union can be overcome if we work together.

One of the greatest challenges facing the Union is the drift towards tax harmonisation and we cannot allow that to happen. If it happens, many international companies will no longer stay in Ireland. Part of the problem in the European Union is not that Ireland has low taxes, even though many countries complain this is the reason we are doing so well. If they want to have low taxes, we are not stopping them and they can do so. However, they must reform their own economies. Globalisation is a reality. We can react to it by putting our heads in the sand but we cannot ignore America or China or India. That is the economic reality.

Most people in this House want to strengthen the European social model but we must have a vibrant economy within the European Union. The people who most defend the European social model are people in France. Is it right to have more than 20% of people under 25 unemployed? I do not think so. We know what that is like because we experienced it in this country. It brought poverty and social exclusion on an horrific level to Ireland. We made fundamental changes in our economy to ensure we do not have those conditions any more. Is it right to have 50% unemployment in immigrant communities in France? The way to go is to be more flexible in one's economy which will in turn create jobs which is the best way of tackling poverty. Money can then be spent on enlightened social projects. I would rather have job creation and low unemployment than pretend to protect a European social model with a level of youth unemployment of more than 20%.

I refer to two opinion polls taken recently in France. They showed that more than 70% of people under 25 wanted to become civil servants. This gives an idea of how low people in France feel about the future if this is their ambition. France is a great nation.

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