Noel Treacy (Galway East, Fianna Fail)

To return to Deputy Higgins's point, it is critically important that we work in a way that takes into account the value, independence, rights and choice of each citizen, that we run a competitive economy and that we take into account not alone the contribution that all citizens can make to developing that economy but also the role they can play in developing social capital. This social capital is traditional to this country, vital to our value system and critical to the economy as an add-on to the delivery of public services by whatever Government is in office. We must mirror that and work to enhance it across the European stage through the Lisbon Agenda to ensure we have a competitive Europe and that we are able to maximise its capacity to grow resources for redistribution across all regions and member states, to take into account the disparities within the regions and provide a greater transfer of resources to bring everybody up to an equal base.

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