Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The view is that every country from the smallest to the largest has to play its part. To make an impact in the years ahead China, India, America and Asia have to be pulled into it in one form or another and that will take a huge international drive and effort. In the meantime we have set out our indicators in Green Papers within the climate change strategy.

On the second issue, given that Germany is doing far better now and has reversed the tide, employment is increasing and the economic performance of a number of countries is improving but, for most, economic growth would be under 2%. A number of countries are seeing a reversal of the unemployment slump of the past few years but competitiveness continues to be the issue. Competitiveness into the future against the US and other parts of the world is based very much on research and development. This is where products will be researched and invented. That will be the big challenge and the reason the US is doing well but it has other difficulties of its own on the jobs front and its own economy. Similar difficulties are being experienced in other parts of the world. The Chinese, in particular, do not pay the same attention to environmental issues although there are indications that they are beginning to look at these issues in a more serious manner and have put out indicators showing where they are investing in the future. I think that global message is getting through.

In a number of areas the 2010 targets of the Lisbon Agenda will not be reached. However, they will be reached in some areas, particularly in graduate numbers, the number of PhDs and increasing the money in research and development. In Europe we are still light years ahead of other parts of the world in regard to the proportion of budgets put into research and development. Last week I looked at data in the US on the amount of money it is putting into energy for the future and it amounts to billions of dollars. Given that so many universities are linked in with the multinationals it is almost inevitable it will find alternative energy products and ways of dealing with issues when it is putting that amount of effort into research. That will help it to drive other economies into the decades ahead.

See this speech in context