Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The state aid rules do not prevent us from enhancing regional development. We are entitled to give higher state aid to locations outside the greater Dublin area and have been doing so for some time. It is correct that state aids create conflict on projects from time to time and it is for us to negotiate those issues and argue our case on them. We had a very high level case about two years ago where we had differences of opinion with the Commission. The problem the Deputy has is that there are areas to which we need to attract investment and where we need to try to win supports for winning foreign direct investment or, for that matter, indigenous investment. Much of the time these matters are within our own capabilities to negotiate and resolve. Perhaps there is an argument on some of those issues and I take the Deputy's point that we have to try to help areas that are disadvantaged or have high unemployment levels. However, opting out of internal market provisions would not be the way to achieve his goal.

See this speech in context