Noel Treacy (Galway East, Fianna Fail)

In all fairness, I must say that Commissioner McCreevy inherited the services directive. He saw the need for changing it and he did so. He called it very quickly. Within three weeks of taking office, he said it would not work. He set about changing it. He brought forward the changes and following the outcome of the European Parliament vote, the European Commission came forward with a revised proposal on the services directive on 4 April last. The proposal was discussed initially at an informal meeting of the Competitiveness Council on 22 April last. It was agreed last Monday and will go before the Council.

At the end of the day, the Lisbon Agenda, Ireland's national economic policies and the Government programme are very much at one with regard to equality of opportunity, greater investment across all sectors, ensuring gender balance and mainstream engagement for all of our people, and ensuring we maintain a competitive economy and control inflation. All of that can sustain existing jobs and create more.

At present 70% of jobs across Europe come from the services sector. It is crucially important that we are aware of this and do not get left behind, and that we maintain our economic operations in a way that will take full account of the opportunities that this presents for us. We have the capacity as a people, the skills, the educational base and the economic and professional track record to be able to take advantage of these professional services and deliver them to Europe and other parts of the world. We must maintain an economy that will allow us to do this.

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