Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

I am, but I am wondering if it is tied into the fiscal, monetary and political union issue. The political and economic issues on the agenda for the next six months are profound. For Ireland, the time has long since come when our Government should start articulating exactly where it stands on these reforms. They are even more important than debt issues in determining when the recovery will take place. They are not secondary to other priorities. If we do not set out what we believe is required to end the crisis and restore long-term growth, we will continue to be bystanders and, in the words of Pat Cox, policy takers.

Sometimes the outcome will be good and the Government can rush out to try to claim credit, but equally there are many areas where we cannot adopt a position of just accepting what emerges from the work under way. We will have issues with some of the proposals and recommendations and it is far better to stake out our position in order that there is public understanding of it.

Given the scale of the crisis and the length of time it has been under way, this summit delivered the bare minimum of what was required to stop a crisis becoming an immediate catastrophe, which is where we were heading prior to last weekend. We need our Government to spend less time on ridiculous self-congratulation and more time actually trying to shape Europe's actions and reform programme.

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