Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)

-----for the need for growth, jobs and a stimulus to drive and encourage movement in the European economies. The meetings on Thursday and Friday will deal with an increase in funding that is available from the European Investment Bank which, in turn, will leverage further moneys but it has to be made available to countries that are in vulnerable positions or those such as Ireland that are in a programme. That is the first answer, a "Yes", which Ireland will articulate very strongly.

Second, I refer to the approval of project bonds. This is an opportunity for flexibility to be shown by Europe in respect of these bonds which have only applied to huge intercontinental infrastructural developments such as motorways, autobahns or railroads. Project bonds would be useful for smaller countries but flexibility must be shown in that regard. That is an issue I will articulate, along with a number of other smaller countries, namely, that as part of the growth and jobs stimulus project bonds should be flexible enough to cater for smaller countries.

Third, I refer to creative ways of using structural funds that remain unspent in countries. This country has spent all the structural funds that were allocated to it. Greece, for example, was allocated €16 billion which it cannot spend because of the requirement to put up moneys from a national perspective. In an overall sense, significant amounts of structural funds will not be spent. The political challenge is to find a creative way of not withdrawing money from envelopes allocated to individual countries but finding a facility whereby when money is not spent over a range of countries a creative way can be found to use it.

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