Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the European Union's summit meeting on 13 and 14 March 2008. In common with Deputies Kenny and Timmins, I compliment the Taoiseach, as it almost certainly was his last European Union summit meeting, at least in his capacity of Taoiseach, on his good work over the years. He has been quite involved in the European Union, as shown by his work on the constitutional treaty in the lead-up to 2004 when Ireland held the Presidency, as well as to the enlargement at that time arising from the accession of eastern European countries in particular, which was a smooth transition considering many of the difficulties that lay therein. I compliment him on his good work in that respect and wish him well in the future.

As the Taoiseach noted, Chancellor Merkel and President Barroso will honour us with visits next week and they certainly will be welcome. Mr. Hans-Gert Pöttering visited Ireland this week and his diplomacy and presentations were impressive. However, we have not had the same benefit of response from Commissioner Kovács or from the French finance Minister in respect of their ill-thought out and ill-timed statements on tax harmonisation and the common consolidated corporation tax base. The Government should make it clear to the Commission in no uncertain terms that some of the remarks of this nature are most unwelcome and inappropriate at this time. I expected France to have more sense, considering its recent experience on the constitutional treaty, than to make a statement of that nature. Every country has a veto on changes to domestic tax regimes. I hope the Minister makes that clear to the appropriate French authorities and President Sarkozy should be remonstrated with.

The summit dealt with three areas in particular. I do not intend to discuss these areas in detail but the new three year cycle of the Lisbon strategy for growth and jobs is particularly important, as is the energy and climate package. The stability of financial markets was also discussed. The presentation to the summit looked very bright. Virtually everything leading up to 2008 was positive and the assessment was quite up-beat. Public deficits in the 27 member states have reduced by more than half since 2005, public debt declined by over 60% and economic growth increased by 2.9% in 2007. In the past two years, 6.5 million jobs have been created. Unfortunately, while these are welcome figures, there has been a sharp economic slowdown globally since the end of 2007 fuelled by higher food and energy prices and the turbulence in the US economy and financial markets resulting from the sub-prime collapse. Ireland's unemployment figures have increased to more than 200,000, the sharpest rise in a decade, and our construction industry has virtually collapsed. All is not well within the European community and while the past looks good, the future is not as bright. I was glad, therefore, that the summit leaders concentrated on the new Lisbon strategy for 2008 to 2010 and emphasised the social dimension and education. I welcome the strong commitment made in the Lisbon treaty on integrating the social clause on full employment and coherence in economic structures. That will be difficult to achieve in the present global environment, especially in Ireland given that our unemployment rate has increased from 4.4% to more than 5% in a very short space of time.

It is important that we pay heed to the message coming from Europe on social cohesion and the integration of the social dimension with the internal market. That will be done in the context of the forthcoming social partnership talks. For a considerable period of time, the EU has had to face the vexed question of balancing workers' rights and conditions of employment against the free movement of capital and establishment. We now have an opportunity to address that question, which has arisen in respect of Irish Ferries, the Laval case, the Viking case and most recently in the Rüffert case in Germany. It is important that we have the freedoms of the European Union in terms of free movement of labour, capital and services, but we must also ensure that people count most. Where a conflict arises, the rights and conditions of employees should be strongest. While there may be difficulties on occasion in determining this at European level there should be no difficulties at national level. That is why the proposed legislation on compliance in the workplace and an enhanced inspectorate is very welcome. We have waited a long time for it and during the construction industry's good times it was almost impossible to find an inspector.

We must also go a step further by ensuring temporary, agency and permanent workers from other countries are not manipulated or exploited in ways that force them into a race to the bottom with their Irish counterparts. Governments and employers must not be allowed to use the EU principles of free movement of workers and capital to undercut the wage levels negotiated by the trade union movement and agreed to by the social partnership. The appropriate forum for addressing this issue, which has repeatedly arisen in the context of the debate on the Lisbon reform treaty, is at the national level. In the upcoming talks with the trade union movement, I hope the Government will accept the importance of the principle of equal treatment of all workers in this country. One of the first acts taken by the trade movement after our accession to the EEC was to bring a court action before the European Court of Justice in 1974 to seek equal pay for women. It is time that we are proactive in taking on board the Lisbon strategy proposals made at the March summit on putting in place a social dimension that protects the rights of workers. Rights such as equal pay, working time, minimum wages, health and safety and parental rights have been given to us through Europe but our Government should now stand up to vindicate the rights of workers.

The issue of flexicurity has to be written into our national reform programme before the end of the year, so I presume it will be addressed by the social partners. The same principles apply because the last thing we need is all flexibility and no security. If the proper balance is achieved, it will be desirable for employees to have both security and flexibility.

The other area that was emphasised strongly in the Lisbon strategy for the next three years is that of education and research, where we are seriously behind. There is a 3% increase in research and development investment targets for the European Union but Ireland is nowhere near that figure at approximately 1.3%. We are way out of kilter. The United States, China and India and other major global economies are sprinting ahead whereas Ireland has been very lax in this area. However, Ireland will have little choice but to show to the European Union how it will meet those targets and in its national reform programme it must set out its method of achieving them. I welcome this requirement because we have been totally lax in making any progress in this area.

Third level institutions are crying out for more funding. They cannot undertake the research and development they would wish, yet the Minister constantly refuses to provide funding, leaving them to complain they are the worst funded third level institutions virtually anywhere in the world. The roll-out of broadband has been ridiculously slow. At the teachers conference, the Minister for Education and Science claimed she did not have funds to provide computers in schools, yet one of the targets at this summit was that all schools should have computers by 2010, which is a commitment entered into by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Taoiseach. There is not a chance we will have useful computers. Some deadweight, non-functioning computers were provided over the years but many schools do not have any modern computers. We are supposed to have good quality, high speed Internet activity in all our schools but we are way behind in this regard also.

The summit raised some desirable issues which we must address in terms of the economy, employment and the way forward for the Lisbon strategy. I hope the Government will meet its targets for 2008 to 2010. An area I did not address is that of climate change, on which I also hope the Government will meet its targets.

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