Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

——the new coalition led by Angela Merkel will get its act together, continue the reforms that have been started and bring back confidence because the underlying strengths of the German economy are considerable and I believe they will benefit us all.

Senator Bradford said we do not hear much about the Lisbon Agenda here and this is true partly because it has not posed the same challenges to Ireland as it did to other economies. It has not required us to take the difficult decisions that have caused disquiet in countries such as France and Germany. In recent months — and this is the reason for the pause in the social partnership negotiations — there has been concern about an outflow of jobs. We are still experiencing a considerable net increase in jobs but have lost certain, mostly low skilled, manufacturing jobs to eastern Europe and had a debate on employment conditions and the "race to the bottom". The Lisbon Agenda was inspired to a degree by the then Portuguese Prime Minister Barosso, who has since become European Commission President. Much of this is a political problem. It is not a technical economic reform issue about what countries should do. It is about persuading people to come with one and the economic advantages of so doing. We have gone through this process twice. Senator Quinn mentioned the Whitaker report of 1958. The process was repeated a generation later in 1987. I have been following the various competitive indices for at least 15 years, and I used to order them from the Department of Finance. They all come to totally different conclusions and I would not have an exaggerated respect for them.