Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)

I will be very quick. I have three questions. The first question relates to the issue I raised at the start of my contribution. Given that the Lisbon treaty was on the agenda I would have thought it would have been made clear to the other Heads of State the manner in which Ireland was conducting its business in terms of ratification, considering that we are the only country that is engaged in a referendum. That is why I am particularly surprised that we had the inappropriate remarks from the French Minister for Finance and from the Commissioner for Competition in recent days. Tax harmonisation and a consolidated tax base are a red herring because they are not matters for those individuals to deal with in the manner in which they claim to be doing. However, it gives an injection of credibility to the eurosceptic side because people in that camp have said that something of this nature might be going on. The Minister expressed concern in this regard in yesterday's newspaper. What steps does he propose to take to ensure that our concern and disappointment in this regard are brought to the appropriate authorities and to ensure that there will not be a recurrence of this for the next two months?

My second question relates to climate change. We will experience the highest reduction targets of all of the 27 European Union countries because of the manner of calculation employed. I understand that the Taoiseach raised with the Commission and with the other leaders questions about the assessment of Ireland's targets. Will the Minister indicate whether the Taoiseach has had any success in that matter? What is the attitude of the Government in terms of whether it now proposes to continue buying carbon credits or whether it intends to put the emphasis in a more proactive fashion on research and development, sustainable energy, bio-fuels, wave and wind energy etc.?

My last question relates to research and development. We are very far behind in terms of investment in research and development. By the end of this year we are supposed to clearly lay out how we are to reach the 3% target set for the European Union. What will the Government do about this? Nothing whatsoever has been done so far, even though it has been flagged on numerous occasions by the Commission that Ireland is hugely in arrears in regard to its investment in this respect.

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