Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

As I stated, I have met all my EU colleagues. Some of these meetings have been formal, bells and whistles, bilateral meetings, while some have been discussions on the margins of EU Foreign Affairs and General Affairs Council meetings and various UN and OSC meetings, to which there has been a number of objectives. In the period leading up to our renegotiations with the European Union and the IMF it was clearly important to brief all the Foreign Ministers on Ireland's objectives and, in particular, to discuss directly with them the issues and difficulties surrounding the reduction in our interest rate. There were also requests from other countries in respect of our corporation tax regime. The bilateral meetings I held with the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Juppé, and the German Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Westerwelle, in particular, were focused on the reduction in the interest rate and the issue of the corporation tax rate. As the Deputy knows, we have now secured a reduction in the interest rate and at the same time retained our rate of corporation tax.

Regarding my meetings with the British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Mr. Hague, I remind the Deputy that in the course of the British Queen's visit to Ireland we established a British-Irish chambers of commerce for the first time, formalising the trade relationship between Britain and Ireland.

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