Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies for their contributions. I will respond to the points they made, in turn, in the context of the agenda for next week's Council meeting.

I will begin by addressing some of the questions Deputy Crowe asked in respect of the EU-Africa summit coming up and what will take place there. The Deputy raised several concerns relating to bioethanol and the role of the European Union. These summits are important in determining the policy between the European Union and Africa for 2014 to 2017. That is why the Taoiseach will be there as well as participating in other meetings with prime ministers from African states. At the moment considerable work is being undertaken to determine the exact agenda for the meeting, but the key themes likely to emerge are: peace and security; democracy, governance and human rights; human development; and sustainable and inclusive growth. The agenda the Government has developed in conjunction with Irish Aid and through the work of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade will feed into the summit agenda and will reflect the views we will take at the summit and which the Taoiseach will articulate. We have built up considerable expertise and knowledge in development policy as a result of our relationship with African states and because of that we will be participating in the summit. We will be able to update Deputy Crowe nearer the point as well as afterwards in respect of the agenda and the points made.

Deputies Martin and Ross raised issues relating to industrial competitiveness and the content of what will be agreed at the meeting. Of the 6 million jobs lost in Europe during the crisis, a little under 4 million have been in manufacturing, 3.8 million to be precise. There is recognition among the governments of the need for Europe-wide action to respond to this and the conclusions of the summit will reflect this. Three areas of price competitiveness are being focused on at the moment, including what has happened in productivity; the fact people in work do not have the support, skills or investment needed to deliver what they want or what many of our competitors are doing; and the further steps that need to be taken to support the supply of credit to small and medium-sized enterprises in Ireland and throughout Europe.

This leads to a point made on the economy and the view the Government takes on the economy. We have said that overall some progress has been made and the figures bear this out. I listened to the points and figures raised by Deputy 'Ming' Flanagan. In the same vein, the figure which should be highlighted is that 61,000 jobs were created last year. There are now a little over 1.9 million people at work within the economy. We have not had such a figure for those at work in our economy since 2009. I fully realise that hundreds of thousands of people are keen to work but cannot. I am as much in contact with the misery and stress that this causes as Deputy Flanagan because I deal with these people in my community and in my work throughout the country. While it is welcome and it is a fact that unemployment and the live register have come down for 21 months in a row, we must ensure job creation plays a far more important role in taking down these figures, although this has been the case in recent months and in the past two years. Too many people are still leaving our country. The areas the Government has prioritised in our domestic economy in this regard are construction, agriculture and tourism.

Ukraine was raised by everyone in their contributions. I listened with interest, particularly to the point Deputy Wallace made. He described the singularly complicated and difficult situation within Ukraine. However, the question I have for Deputy Wallace is: what would he actually do? His analysis may well be strong and there may well be dimensions of it which reflect what is happening there. In the context of a country facing the type of pressure Ukraine is facing at the moment, what should we do now?

It is absolutely not true to say that the European Union played any role in pressurising a government to take any stance in respect of signing an agreement with us. An agreement was put on the table and we negotiated with the Government that was in place in Ukraine at the time. It decided not to sign the agreement while Georgia and Moldova signed. It is our responsibility not only to analyse the situation but, as Deputy Wallace might put it, to respond to it. What we are now doing through our membership of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, one of the few organisations which has all these countries as members, is supporting the monitoring mission that was due to go to Crimea. However, it has not secured the type of access it should have, as Deputy Wallace is aware. There is an Irish member on the mission. We are a member of the Council of Europe, through which an adviser has been appointed to work with the speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament to try to develop a system of parliament and changes in the Ukrainian Administration to deal with some of the complexities to which Deputy Wallace referred.

I emphasise that the main theme of the European Union throughout the crisis has been to emphasise that it is up to the people of Ukraine to decide their future. What we want and what we are pushing and advocating for is fair elections within the country, an inclusive political arrangement and a constitution that reflects all the cultures in the country. I welcome the fact that as a consequence, for example, the law in respect of changing the status of the Russian language within Ukraine was not signed. This has been the approach of the European Union throughout.

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