Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State and his statement. We are discussing the national reform programme of the Lisbon Agenda and the Minister of State has explained very well what Ireland is doing. We have been told to take on board and adhere to this three year programme but it gives me no pleasure at all to say that the Lisbon Agenda is, to all intents and purposes, a dead duck. I say this with the greatest regret as I have been one of the agenda's champions from the very beginning. I loved the terms it uses, such as "knowledge-based economy" and "competitive area of the world by 2010". I welcomed it because it offered the EU as a unit a position in the world that had nothing to do with throwing its weight around. I have always resisted the idea that we should become another world power or a counterweight to the United States of America. For me, the mission of the EU is to be a peaceful trader. If we excel in this respect and become the most competitive area in the world, so much the better.

I also welcomed the priorities of the Irish Presidency in 2004 when it sought to revive the Lisbon Agenda and put it on the front burner again but we saw all too clearly that our attempts met with meagre results, which I say with a certain sense of sadness. We should recognise that the agenda is a dead duck for all practical purposes due to a number of reasons. First and most obvious, the results achieved. Instead of closing the gap with the US since launching the initiative, we in the EU have done the very opposite. In all of the benchmarks that matter, whether they are in productivity, spending on research and development or, as Senator Bradford mentioned, the penetration of broadband, the gap between the EU and the US is getting wider every day. We are living in cloud cuckoo land if we believe we can even close it by 2010. There is no point in setting ourselves a target that is clearly unattainable. It would be better to be realistic and come to this conclusion. I am speaking about Europe as a whole and will return to the difference between the EU and its 25 member states later.

One of the reasons we have failed to close the gap is that we lack the mechanics to do so. This was a European initiative but was never within the competence of the European institutions we established to make it happen. All Brussels could do was exhort, encourage and push the member states to do what was needed. It was clear from the beginning that any action on the Lisbon Agenda must be taken by individual states. Despite all of the huffing and puffing, they have singularly failed to do so. The truth is that while the Lisbon Agenda was a priority for the Commission, it was never a priority for the larger European states. They must take the hard decisions to make the agenda work but, almost without exception, they have lacked the motivation to do so.

Taking Dr. T. K. Whitaker in 1959 as an example, the Government faced a number of tough decisions. We had grown used to a way of life that worked reasonably well for us in the 1930s and 1940s in terms of what we wanted to achieve but when Dr. Whitaker put forward an economic plan in 1959 it took courage to tell people something difficult needed to be done and that we needed to do away with protectionism. These are the same types of decisions facing the larger member states but they have not faced up to them. Many of the larger states have more pressing domestic concerns to pay attention to instead of getting involved in making the reforms, which would be very unpopular in many cases. It is fair to say that when it was proposed to do away with car assembly activities here, there were howls of protest from the people whose jobs would be lost. Others are not facing up to the same problems we addressed in those years and this is why the gap is widening. No one in those countries is working hard to close it.

Another reason we have failed is the nature of Europe's economy. In comparing the amount that industry in Europe spends on research and development with the United States and others, the European figure is much lower. It is worth examining why this is the case. The reason is not, as many people believe, that European industrialists are more stuck in the mud than their American counterparts, although this may be part of the reason. If this were the problem, we could try to get them to do something about it. The reason is due to the nature of our economy. The vast bulk of the EU economy, especially in the larger member states, consists of low technology, traditional style industries where the scope for research and development is low when compared with the greater proportion of the US economy, which is centred around the high technology industries of the future, where research and development is the very life blood of activity. Taking the Continent as a whole and the larger countries in particular, Europe's real problem is that its industries are old-fashioned and its structures are out of date. These are survival issues and the EU should focus on dealing with them. Talking about leading the world in this context is simply absurd.

I have discussed the EU as a whole, a single, continental entity and what I said remains true for as long as we examine problems from that perspective. However, when we examine closely the countries that comprise the EU, we see a different story and one that is much more complicated. It is worth our while to examine this closer picture as, by doing so, we can find the right path for Ireland.

One of the great aspects of the European Union which is being threatened all the time is that lovely word "subsidiarity". When I heard it first, I was not quite sure what it meant and now believe we must protect it. It makes a great deal of sense to make decisions in certain areas at the top in Brussels. However, the answer to this problem lies in ensuring more decisions are made closer to home and the markets. The overall European economy is not doing well and the outlook remains bad for the foreseeable future. However, within Europe certain areas go against this trend and not all European countries are uncompetitive.

In recent years Ireland's economic performance clearly outpaced the European average. Recently I visited two eastern European countries and South America. The regard with which Ireland and the economy are held makes one proud to be Irish. I recently watched a British television programme that was 30 years old. I was jolted to hear Irish jokes being told. I realised I had not heard that type of joke for ten or 15 years. Anti-Irish jokes are no longer told because we are so highly regarded. I state this with a great sense of pride. Hearing the jokes reminded me how out of date they were.

In recent years Ireland's economic performance has outpaced the European average and left all of the laggards behind. However, Ireland is far from being at the front of the pack. That is the main point I wish to make. Recently, we discussed the growth competitiveness index produced by the World Economic Forum. If one examines it, one sees the most competitive country in the world in 2005 is Finland which I got to know in 1971 and during the 1970s. I found its history, population and traditions had a great deal in common with those of Ireland. It has a large neighbour that ruled it for many years, influenced it and forced its language on it. At the same time as the Gaelic revival movement sought to ensure Ireland's independent culture in the 1890s, there was a similar movement in Finland.

Finland beat the United States into second place in the world competitiveness stakes. This is not a forecast for 2010, or any other time in the future. Finland is not only a European country, it is one with approximately the same population and many of the same traditions as Ireland. It is interesting to note Finland's performance is not a fluke. Which country is third on the competitiveness index? It is Finland's neighbour and a fellow EU member, Sweden. Which country is fourth? It is another small Scandinavian country, Denmark, which also has much in common with Ireland.

The Lisbon Agenda may be a dead duck as far as Europe as a whole is concerned. Some EU members are clearly acting in a successful manner. Three of our fellow members, two as small as Ireland, are already in the top four most competitive countries in the world. Where do we come on that scale? We are way down the list at No. 26. Taking the 15 EU member states before the recent enlargement, we rank tenth. While our growth rate is above the EU average, our competitiveness performance is certainly not. What I am saying is simple. We need to pay less attention to Europe as a whole, which is why I am excited about maintaining and protecting subsidiarity and ensuring it is not allowed to slip. More attention must be paid to those fellow members which are getting it right in the competitiveness race. We need to lift our eyes to the Nordic region where Finland, Sweden and Denmark have much to teach us. We can also learn from Norway which came ninth in the competitiveness index and it is not even a EU member state.

Examining the Government's reform programme that is the subject of this debate, I see a great deal of motherhood and apple pie, an all-American phrase which means one makes nice statements with which no one can disagree. Much of this document smacks of a desire to fill in the boxes for Brussels, rather than a determination on our part to get to the heart of the real challenges that face us. Rather than go into play with a huge shopping list such as the one before us, it seems we are not paying enough attention to two main priorities.

It was interesting to hear the Leader of the House, Senator O'Rourke, discuss education. I spoke to a university professor during the week. He told me that when he started lecturing three or four years ago, he was jolted by the poor standards of undergraduate students in mathematics and basic English. He could not believe their inability to communicate in a written form or handle basic mathematics. Education is the foundation for the creation of future prosperity. If we spent half of the effort and money on education that we invest in roads, we would go a long way to transforming the country in the way necessary. All of the Nordic countries have a superb education system which produces great results for them.

We also fail to focus on the information society, although there are exceptions. I raised this issue last week. I spoke on the Order of Business and three or four minutes later I received a text message congratulating me on the tie I wore that day, which was similar to the Cathaoirleach's. I looked around to see if the person who had texted me was sitting in the Visitors Gallery. He was in Melbourne, Australia watching what was happening on the Internet. He must have had little to do. He is an Irish man living in Melbourne.